P&F Industries 11: Talladega Afternoons: The Story of Isabella Flynn
by EDD17SP
Summary: The epic series finale! There will be blood, broken bones and broken dreams. Super-fast speeds and short-track action! Fusions and Mustangs! Lessons in racing and lessons in life! And Isabella makes a shocking discovery about her family! (Not necessarily in that order.) The end is near, so crank it up!
1. Spring Ahead

**This series is not nearly as popular as I had hoped it would be, so I decided to end it two stories early. I mean, after 11 stories (11 because of the 5.5) none of the stories had more than four followers and only one broke a thousand views, and that was only because it was so long. I had plans for two more ****_P&F Industries _****installments before this one, but because of the lack of interest I have decided to end it here. Why should I keep putting all this work into my writing if no one's gonna read the stories that I pour my heart and soul into? Thanks to the very few who followed and enjoyed this extremely long tale since the beginning.**

**Just so we're clear, this story is part of the ****_P&F Industries _****series. For this story to make any sense at all, the others all must be read first, in order. They are:**

**#1: The Mustang**

**#2: El Camino de calle traviesa: Walk across the street**

**#3: Night on the Riviera**

**#4: Baljeet and the Superchicken**

**#5: Deep Sea Fishing for Barracuda**

**#5point5: Isabella's Gremlin of a Day and other stories**

**#6: Something Wicked This Way Chuggs**

**#7: Phineas and Perry: Intrepid Avengers**

**#8: Molecular Fusion**

**#9: Love, Science, and NASCAR**

**#10: Tales From the Engine Shop**

**I hope you all enjoy this final installment.**

**And, incase you couldn't tell, the title is a spoof of ****_Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. _****I tried to include as many lines and parallels from the movie as I could to make this funnier for people who have seen the movie.**

P&F Industries #11: Talladega Afternoons: The Story of Isabella Flynn

Chapter 1: Spring Ahead

Isabella just stared. Straight ahead. There wasn't anything else to look at, anyway. The surrounding area was too dark to see anything beyond the red-and-green Ford Fusion that sat before her. It was bathed in a fierce, almost un-earthly, white light.

She knelt on the ground on the farthest reaches of the circle of light, shadows dancing on her skin every time she moved. The racecar seemed almost menacing, the narrow headlight stickers like glaring eyes, the false grill insert like a mouth, teeth gritted in anger. _"You took my something away from me," _the car seemed to say to her. _"It's your fault he's gone."_

Isabella closed her eyes tightly and clenched her jaw. "No. It's not my fault," she whispered to herself. "He asked for it. I only did what he asked me to do. It's not my fault."

_"You should have known better. You've screwed up enough before to know what was the right thing to do."_

"Shut up!"

_"It's your fault. You killed him."_

She stood and charged toward the racecar and kicked as hard as she could at the front bumper, but didn't manage to do any damage. Breathing fire through her grinding teeth, Isabella tried to burn a hole in the hood of the car with her eyes.

Then she suddenly froze when she heard a noise behind her.

It was like a gentle footstep, just a single, light footfall on the pavement. She turned around.

At first she almost didn't recognize her friend. Steve Marcis looked like he had just been through a war. Blood had stained his white Ford Racing hat and was trickling slowly down the side of his head, down to his neck. A neck which was bent at a very unnatural angle and from which scary bumps were visible. His collar bone was obviously broken. His red-and-green fire suit, colored to match the racecar, was blackened in patches, especially around the lower right sleeve and the right side of his torso. But worst of all were his legs. Both leaned at jagged angles, obviously broken. Isabella wasn't sure how he was standing up.

Steve raised his right arm and pointed a finger, a blackened, somewhat twisted finger, at Isabella. "You." His ever-present dark sunglasses were missing, so his eyes, black and lifeless, looked straight through Isabella as his mouth curled into a displeased frown. "You did this to me."

"No!"

The mangled man staggered out of the shadows toward Isabella, his arm still outstretched at her. "You took my life away from me."

Isabella backed away, but found she was boxed in by the racecar behind her. She raised her hands to her face defensively. "I'm sorry!"

"Sorry isn't good enough! You ruined me! My life was perfect, and you took it all away from me!" Steve spat, flecks of blood spewing out at her. "I finally realized my dreams, and you destroyed them!"

He was right in front of her now. She turned away and stumbled backwards, landing on the hood of the Fusion as he leaned in close to her. He smiled evilly.

"Remember Matthew 5:38? 'An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth?'" Steve slowly raised his left hand, which he'd been hiding behind his back. In it he held a four-foot length of steel roll cage tubing, the ends jagged from rough cutting. "Remember?"

Isabella shuttered and pulled her legs up onto the hood of the car, trying to propel herself backwards as Steve raised the pipe above his head. "W-what are you doing?"

His evil grin grew wider. A few of his teeth were out of place, too. "Justice."

He swung the pipe down. Isabella screamed.

**I bet you're all really confused. I'd say this is all going to be explained in the next chapter, but, no, it's not.**


	2. Fall Back

**Alright! We're back at Michigan!**

Chapter 2: Fall Back

_Date: August 16, 2020_

_Location: Michigan International Speedway_

_Event: Five Hour Energy 400_

Ever wake up in the morning and just have that unmistakable feeling that all is right with the world and today is just going to be awesome? The very instant that Isabella stepped out of her and Phineas's motor coach on that windy August morning she could tell that today was definitely _not_ one of those days.

Phineas could see the far off look in her eyes. "Isabella?" She didn't seem to hear him. "Isabella?"

"Hm? What?"

"Are you okay? What's wrong?"

She didn't realize that she'd been staring off into space. "Oh. Nothing. I'm fine."

Phineas didn't quite believe her, but he did his best to shrug it off as Candace and Jeremy approached from a different area of the coach lot.

"Good morning," Candace greeted her little brother and sister-in-law cheerfully. "Beautiful day for racing, huh?" Windy as it was, there was not a cloud in the sky and the sun was hot.

"Sure is," Phineas replied when Isabella said nothing.

Steve showed up just a few seconds later, already dressed in his fire suit even though the race didn't start for another couple of hours. "Ever wake up in the morning and just have that unmistakable feeling that all is right with the world and today is just going to be awesome?" he said jauntily.

"No," Isabella said with a frown, but no one heard her.

"Phineas, have you heard from the newly-weds?" Steve asked.

"I briefly talked to Ferb last night. If my calculations are correct, they should be arriving…" Phineas looked at his watch just as a flash of green light emanated from the behind him. When it vanished, Ferb and Vanessa were left in its wake.

"Hi, guys," Vanessa said with a wave.

"Right now," Phineas finished.

They all laughed. Everyone except for Isabella, that is, who still looked lost in thought.

"So, how was the honeymoon?" Jeremy asked.

"Awesome!" Vanessa answered. "Up until about eight seconds ago when it ended."

"You guys didn't have to come back just for this," Steve told them.

"Sure we did! It's MIS! This is like, our track! We couldn't miss this one." Everyone looked shocked as Ferb spoke, never before hearing him speak in such an excited tone.

"Besides," Vanessa added when the effect wore off, "It was good to have something to drag us away from the honeymoon. Otherwise, there's a good chance we wouldn't have ever come back." She punctuated that thought with a sly smile.

"It was that good, huh?" Candace asked.

"Oh, yeah! You wouldn't believe the stuff Ferb comes up with. Like the first night, he took a-"

"Okay, TMI!" Steve interrupted. "Michigan International Speedway is a family oriented facility, let's keep the adult talk to a minimum."

Vanessa blushed slightly. "Sorry. I keep forgetting that some people here aren't married."

Steve crossed his arms. "You're talking about me, aren't you?"

"Well, you are the only one associated with Monotreme Motorsports who doesn't at the very least have a girlfriend," she pointed out.

"What about your dad?"

"Oh, he gave up on that years ago, he doesn't count. Besides, he's been married and divorced, so he's _had _a girl."

"Perry?"

"Perry doesn't count either. He's a platypus."

"Jenny?"

"We haven't seen Jenny in three years, ever since she went over to Africa. She doesn't count as being associated with the team. But, I did hear that she might actually have a beau."

"A what?"

"Boyfriend," Candace translated.

"That's a term?"

Vanessa was right, of course. Adyson and Django had finally gotten married in February and Baljeet had proposed to Ginger in the off-season. Stacy and Coltrane were planning to tie the knot in a couple weeks during the last off-weekend of the racing season. Buford and Milly had been dating for years, Irving and Holly tended to run together, and Katie and Gretchen were each dating someone they'd met at a race: Katie, the Director of Competition of Germain Racing, Gretchen, the rear tire changer for the number 6 Nationwide team.

"Face it, Steve. You're the only single guy on the team," Vanessa said in a tone that was just slightly mocking. "And you're the _driver_, which means you should be able to get a girlfriend way more easily than anyone else. Not that any of the guys on this team even needed to try, but that's besides the point."

Steve just stared at her for a minute, his lips pursed together with agitation. Finally he said, "The McMurray's invited me to have breakfast with them this morning, and I wasn't planning on going, but now I think I am."

He turned on his heel and walked briskly away.

Candace slapped Vanessa on the arm.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"You ticked off our driver! Don't you know that when racecar drivers race angry they use more fuel?"

"I didn't realize it was such a touchy subject," Vanessa said. "I've never heard anyone talk about it before."

"With good reason," Phineas told her. "I can only recall it being brought up once before. Irving said something about it right after he started dating Holly, and Steve just about knocked his teeth out."

"After that," Candace continued, "I made everyone promise not to ask Steve about his love life, for his safety and theirs."

"Oh…" Vanessa's eyes sank. "I should probably go apologize."

Candace put out a hand to stop her. "Don't. Trust me. Anytime he hangs out with Jamie McMurray, he always comes back in a good mood. Just don't make eye contact with him for a couple days and he'll forget about it."

"Okay…" Vanessa sounded uncertain, but she trusted Candace's words.

The mood now somber, the gang broke up, each moving to perform their morning race day duties.

One last time, Phineas looked at Isabella, who still looked lost to the world. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"No…I have this…terrible feeling that something isn't gonna go right today…"

* * *

In the three and a half years that he'd been racing, Steve had made friends with several of his competitors and occasionally hung out with them. In particular, he enjoyed the company of Jamie McMurray and family. Perhaps it was because the McMurray's often socialized with the Kenseth clan, whom Steve was also friends with, but there was a slightly lesser age gap between himself and Jamie. After a nice breakfast courtesy of Christy McMurray and some conversation about anything but racing, Vanessa's comments were pushed from Steve's mind and he and Jamie headed for the garage. More than once, Steve had to tighten his Ford Racing cap to keep it from blowing off of his head. It was very windy today.

"See you on the grid, Jamie!" Steve called as he entered his stall in the MIS garage. He found Buford and Irving, the latter helping the former run some computer simulations. "Good morning, ya'll."

"What's with the faux southern drawl?" Buford asked.

Steve shrugged. He looked over Irving's shoulder at the computer screen. It looked different from the usual simulations that were run. "What exactly are you doing?"

Irving turned around. "Ask Buford."

Steve said nothing. He just looked at Buford and motioned for the car chief to speak.

"Umm…" Buford scratched the back of his neck. "Here's the thing…I am really concerned that this car is not safe."

"Why? It's no different than any other car we've built."

"Yeah, the _car_ is no different, but this engine…" Buford stepped closer to Steve, as if afraid someone else would hear him. "Dude…this car is _fast._"

"Oh, we've well established that."

That they had.

After last year's season finale, the super-powered engine Isabella had built was confiscated by NASCAR. Steve had managed to get it back to install in the Ford GT28 he'd built for Phineas and Isabella, but officials had completely rewritten the technical rule book, placing bans on everything Isabella had used to squeeze 200 extra horses out of the engine. When shown the new rules, she had shrugged, unconcerned. In no time at all, Isabella had constructed a new "super-engine," with even a little bit more power than the original and still within the rule restrictions.

"I call it the FR11," she'd told Steve.

"We're skipping over FR10?"

"10 was too low a number for this thing."

"Well, if we're gonna use this…and we know we can only use it once because they'll immediately ban every new technique you've come up with…we have to take it to the right track. Not Homestead again. That's not a place for a super-engine."

"I was thinking Michigan. Much wider, higher banked curves, you already get up to 212 miles an hour down the front stretch, and, if Candace's telemetry is accurate, you don't really use any brake going into the corner."

"I see where you're going with this."

"With this engine, you could easily make 225, maybe 230. If you roll out of the gas early enough, about half brake oughta get you down to cornering speed." She smiled slyly. "Plus, that's, like, Ford's home turf. We gotta make sure we beat the Chevy's and especially the Toyotas."

They knew it was fast. That was established on the first lap of Friday practice, toping the leader board by a whopping four and half seconds. And best of all, the car was actually drivable, not like at Homestead where they'd had to dial back the engine just so the car could slow down to corner. On qualifying day, they shattered all previous speed records, snatching the pole easily. Officials had demanded to see the engine and were baffled when it passed inspection. Isabella could see them already taking notes on what to ban next, but she didn't care.

The next day, it became clear to the field that they were racing for second place. The 28 team was going to blow them out of the water. They knew this because Steve Marcis only made one practice lap during Happy Hour, his time the fastest he'd run all weekend, _averaging_ 211 mph, 8 miles per hour faster than the old record.

"Just give 'em the trophy now and tell the 28 they don't have to race tomorrow," Clint Bowyer had suggested in an interview, "because the rest of us don't have a chance in hell of beating them."

In the middle of the night, an alarm had suddenly gone off in the garage. No one could figure out what it was until Isabella showed up and turned it off. Ever since the 48 team had snooped around their garage stall at Homestead last year and copied her designs to 1 up their own engine, she'd had Phineas build her a security system. Perry was still on call, but now it didn't matter if he fell asleep. The alarm woke him up and he pounced, tackling a Hendrick Engines employee to the ground and beating him senseless.

"I don't think you understand, dude," Buford insisted. "This car is dangerously fast." Steve looked skeptical. "Irving, show him."

Steve spun on his heal and looked at his bespectacled spotter. "Well?"

"Uhhhhh…" Irving adjusted his glasses. "If, um, if you…uh."

Buford pushed him out of the way. "It's so windy today, if you get turned around backwards at full speed, you're airborne. No doubt about it. The roof flaps might as well be postage stamps stuck to the roof. They're gonna be useless."

Steve shrugged. "So?"

Buford looked shocked. "So! Kinda the point is to keep all four wheels on the ground!"

"Ah, so what? All the greatest NASCAR drivers have barrel rolled at some point." He counted them out on his fingers. "Richard Petty, Darrel Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon - it took Gordon a while, but he finally did it - Rusty Wallace, Brad Keselowski, Carl Edwards, Mark Martin, Kyle Busch, and of course, let's not forget, the greatest racer of all time, Matt Kenseth. All great champions, all have flipped over a car at some point in their careers. I always thought it looked kind of fun. And you know, every time someone flips over, they always interview 'em afterwards, and they say 'NASCAR isn't doing their job. They need to do something to keep these cars on the ground. Somebody's gonna get hurt.' I want to flip a car, and then go on TV afterwards and say, 'That was kinda cool. I wanna do it again.'"

Buford and Irving stared at Steve, mouths agape, shocked beyond words.

"What?"

Buford shook his head to clear the cobwebs. "Do you listen to your own words?"

"Huh?"

"There were so many things wrong with that thought process, I don't even know where to begin! First of all, Matt Kenseth…definitely not the greatest driver in NASCAR history. I mean, seriously?"

"Hold on," Irving said, "Didn't Kenseth flip over in the Busch Series, you know, back when it _was _the Busch Series? That doesn't even count."

"Forget about that, Dweeb!" Buford focused back on Steve. "You actually _want_ to flip a car over at 200 miles an hour?"

"Not on purpose, but I think it would be kinda cool."

Buford was shocked into staring again, so Irving spoke for him. "Have you recently been tested for insanity?"

"Guys! Chill! Everything's gonna be fine," Steve said, trying to soothe their fears. "I mean, how many times have I even wrecked? There was that one time in ARCA, Brad spun me out at Watkins Glen but I didn't hit anything, and I hit the wall in practice at Homestead last year when Isabella didn't warn me that I had 200 extra horsepower. The odds of me wrecking at all, let alone getting airborne, are pretty slim. Just relax."

So they dropped the subject. Steve had to leave half an hour later to attend the driver's meeting. As soon as he was out of earshot, Buford and Irving shared a look.

"He's lost it," Irving said.

"He's one bolt short of a…I don't know how that saying goes, but you know what I mean. He's nuts."

* * *

Isabella dried her hands with a towel in the motor coach's bathroom. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror as she placed the towel back on the rack. Something about the look on her face caught her attention. She just stared at herself in the mirror for a while until Phineas knocked on the door, asking if she was okay, for she'd been in there for some time.

"Yeah…I'll be there in a sec." She sighed. "I just can't shake this feeling…that something bad is gonna happen today."

**That is actually one of the longest chapters I've written in quite a while. **

**Anyway, I hope you liked it.**


	3. Air

Chapter 3: Air

For the next few hours, Isabella's usual peppy pre-race attitude was MIA. To anyone who didn't know she was employed by a race team, she appeared lost, like she didn't belong here in the garage area. It wasn't until the green flag dropped that she finally regained her usual composure. Well, most of it anyway. She sat quietly with Candace and Phineas on the war wagon, feeling somewhat comforted by the sound of the roaring engines.

Fifty laps in and Steve was comfortably ahead by a dozen laps. With no complaints about the car, the only talk on the radio was Irving's spotting, and she was getting tired of listening to the nearly relentless, _"Clear…clear…clear…clear…clear…"_ on her scanner every time Steve passed a slower car. She turned off the volume and took Phineas's hand. He briefly smiled at her, and they both turned back to the race.

"Okay, guys," Candace called out to the crew. "Steve's happy with the car, so when we pit next time, no adjustments, just four tires and fuel. And you know what? Take your time. No rush. We could take the lug nuts off by hand and still be done before the rest of the field caught up." Candace started to laugh. "We could take the car behind the wall and swap out the transmission before the field made up all that ground!" She slapped her knee, cracking up now. "We could take the backup car off the trailer, take the engine out of this car, put it in the backup car, come back on the track and _still_ win the race!"

The rest of the gang exchanged nervous looks. Candace was now laughing so hard she was having trouble breathing.

"We…we could…we…ha ha! We could-"

Phineas stood up from his chair and put his hand on Candace's shoulder. "Sis?"

"Ha ha ha! Yeah? Ha! Ha!"

With the most serious look expression he could muster, Phineas looked at his older sister. "Candace…calm down."

Candace leaned backwards into her chair. "Sorry."

Some laps later, Steve pulled down pit road and the crew performed flawlessly as usual.

"We are so good at this," Candace said, smiling and folding her arms contently as she watched her car return to the track.

* * *

_"Welcome back to NBC's coverage of the Pure Michigan 400 presented by Advance Auto Parts. If you're just joining us, Steve Marcis is setting the pace today, much like at Homestead last fall. He has lapped the field 16 times so far in his number 28 Ford."_

_"You know, we haven't been paying much attention to Steve Marcis today because he's so far ahead - I mean, he's just in his own zip code - but I was watching him during the commercial, and I think he's being a little overly aggressive passing these slow cars."_

_"Which, of course, at the speed he's running is somewhere between 7 and 12 cars a lap."_

_"Exactly. But I mean, he's sixteen laps ahead, and he's been making some rather risky moves trying to pass these guys. It's not like he can't afford to just slow down a little and wait patiently for an opening. But he's forcing the issue here and I'm not sure why."_

_"Let's go back a few laps and take a look at what Kyle is talking about."_

_"See right here, turn 3, he moves inside to pass Ricky Stenhouse in the 17...now the 42 and the 11 are side by side ahead of him and he's pinned on the bottom under Stenhouse, so he can't move outside…but instead of just waiting until they get to the front stretch when he'd have plenty of room to move to the inside and pass them, he drives down on to the apron, car won't stick, and slides up and just barely makes contact with 42."_

_"I see what you mean. It's not like it's two laps to go and the second place car is right on his tail. He's 16 laps ahead of second place Joey Logano and we haven't even reached halfway yet."_

_"It seems rather uncharacteristic of Marcis because he is usually a very patient racer, and today he's driving like a man possessed."_

* * *

The NBC announcers weren't the only ones who noticed Steve's rather reckless driving. As the spotter, Irving's entire job was to watch Steve circle the track. And he noticed the careless moves his driver was making to pass the much slower cars in the field.

And he, too, noted that this was very unlike Steve's usual driving style.

"Hey, Steve?"

_"Yeah?"_

"What are you doing?"

_"Racing."_

"I see that, but you're driving like a pissed off teenager. Do you think you could just be a little more careful?"

_"Yeah, yeah. Sure."_

Irving was not reassured, but he didn't press the issue. "Okay. Aaaaand…you're clear," he added as Steve streaked past Ryan Newman.

* * *

Candace frowned at the telemetry on her laptop. Steve's lap times had dropped off. Sure, he was still figurative light-years quicker than the rest of the field, but his times had dropped off by about half a second.

"Everything okay, Steve?" she asked.

There was a pause before Steve replied, and he sounded confused by her question. _"Yeah…why?"_

"Well, your times are the slowest they've been all race. I just wanted to make sure you were okay in there."

_"Never better."_

No sooner had the radio silence returned, there was a noticeable gasp from the grandstands. Steve had driven his car through a hole that didn't exist and clipped the front bumper of Kurt Busch's car, causing him to slide wildly in the middle of the backstretch. Candace could hear Irving yelling at Steve on the radio. _"What the heck was that?! I never said you were clear!"_

_"Geez, sorry."_

A light went off in Candace's head. She suddenly realized why Steve's lap times had fallen off.

"Steve is driving too hard," she told Phineas and Isabella. "That's why his times have slowed down! He's driving too far into the corner and having to use more brake to make the car turn."

"That doesn't sound like Steve at all," Phineas said.

Candace turned her attention back to the racetrack as her red and green car came off of turn four. She watched Steve make another rather reckless move to put Tony Stewart another lap down. Shaking her head, Candace leaned back in her seat. "Is he trying to prove something?" she asked aloud.

Down on the ground behind the war wagon, Vanessa was recalling her earlier words toward Steve and wondering the same thing.

* * *

_"I just caught a puff of smoke out of somebody's car. I think it might have come from the 28 car."_

_"Yup. There it is. You can see it when he goes through the corner. Looks like he's got a left rear tire-rub."_

_"There's actually a good size wrinkle in the fender there. He made pretty good contact with somebody."_

_"Let's take a look at the replay…okay, see right here…he gets off turn four a little hot and makes a little bit of an overcorrection to keep it off the wall, and when he does, he gets into Kasey Kahne-"_

_"Ooh, that was some pretty heavy contact."_

_"-And now…he's got himself a tire rub."_

_"Actually, it looks like its getting worse."_

_"Yeah, he's gonna have to pit soon 'cause that tire is not gonna last. At least he's got time to kill fixing that fender, being that he's now close to 19 laps ahead of the field."_

* * *

_"Steve, you've gotta pit. You've got a bad left rear tire rub."_

Steve was just exiting turn 4 when he heard Candace's voice in his ear. He knew the tire was going down, but didn't realize how bad the damage was. He figured he was gonna have to pit and keyed the radio to reply.

But he never got the chance to speak.

The tire exploded, the rubber shredding apart. The force of the explosion and the lack of balance in the rear caused the car to spin around backwards. Just as Buford and Irving had predicted, the combination of 200 mile per hour plus speeds and the high winds was lethal.

The rear wheels lifted off the ground, pushed up by the air. The car sailed backwards, seemingly in slow motion.

"Yup, I'm flying through the air. This is not good."

Eventually, the curvature of the front stretch caught up with the path of the airborne Fusion and the racecar sailed into the catch fence. The rear of the car caught in the fence, and the car was yanked around, tearing away pieces from the back end. The car spun in midair, turning upside down before crashing back to the asphalt.

* * *

The crew watched their car launch into the air and hit the catch fence, shocked.

"Peaches and cream!" Katie exclaimed.

Isabella was on her feet instantly, stunned beyond words. Her premonition of doom had come true.

The car hit the ground upside down with the rear end, and the exposed fuel cell exploded in a fireball. Now trailing fire, the car tumbled down the banking, pieces tearing away from the car-

-right into the path of Jamie McMurray.

Jamie saw the car go airborne just ahead of him and instinctively slammed on the brakes. But when the wheels locked, the car broke sideways, and Jamie had no control. The nose of his Chevrolet drilled into the roof of Steve's car as it tumbled, crushing in the roll cage.

Fortunately, the hit from McMurray removed kinetic energy from Steve's car, and the tumbling stopped. It flipped back right-side up and slid down into the grass, where it eventually came to a stop near the outside pit wall, the rear still ablaze. The number 1 Cessna car carrying Jamie Mac landed a few yards away.

Though the hi-speed impact had knocked Jamie out of his wits, the sight of Steve's blazing racecar quickly brought him back to his senses. As quickly as he could, Jamie dropped the window net and removed his safety belts, scrambling out of the car and ditching his helmet in the grass. He ran the few yards to Steve's car as the safety crews were forced to wait until the field had slowed and passed.

NASCAR quickly threw the red flag and the cars still remaining on the track were brought to a stop on the backstretch. A fire truck and a pair of ambulances sped to the scene, where Jamie McMurray was heroically trying to free his friend from the burning remains of the Ford Fusion.

Steve was obviously unconscious. The top of the roll cage had been crushed down so far that Jamie had difficulty reaching through the window opening. Jamie disconnected Steve's steering wheel and managed to get the main harness belts off, but was unable to disconnect the HANS device from the seat before the fire spread to the greenhouse. The onboard fire extinguishers were useless against the burning gasoline, and Jamie was forced to retreat, unable to see or breathe in the smoke.

He was quickly dragged away by a safety worker as the firefighters attacked the car with heavy duty fire extinguishers. Two more disappeared into the thick, black cloud that obscured the racecar from view.

* * *

Phineas, Isabella, and Candace hurried down from the war wagon, eyes locked on the inferno in the grass.

"Think he's okay?" Django asked.

"I think he's dead," Buford said nonchalantly. This was met with glaring looks. "What? I'm just sharing' my opinion."

"Oh my God oh my God oh my God oh my God-" Isabella was whispering to herself, chewing on her fingernails.

* * *

The safety workers emerged from the cloud of smoke, schlepping the lifeless form of Steve Marcis behind them. The right side of his body was blackened and charred and his helmeted head and limbs hung limp. He was quickly loaded into an ambulance, which sped toward pit road and through the garage, heading for the Infield Care Center. Another followed with Jamie McMurray a moment later.

* * *

The team rushed to the Infield Care Center, only to be stopped at the door.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! You can't all come in here at the same time!" the security guard barked.

"But we have to see Steve!" Isabella protested, some shakiness in her voice.

"All the more reason why you can't all go in there. Mr. Marcis is being prepared for an airlift to Irish Hills Medical Center." The guard held up one finger. "_One_ of you can enter."

The crew exchanged glances. "One of us should go with Steve to the hospital," Phineas said. "Baljeet, you do most of the medical research," he said of the Indian man's work at P&F Industries. "You should go."

"Vanessa does more medical work than I do!" Baljeet protested.

"But I work with curing diseases," she reminded him. "Your research is more on the MD side."

"Hmm…good point. Okay, I shall go." He started toward the door, but the security guard stopped him.

"No entry."

"But I must!"

"No entry."

Buford shouldered Baljeet out of the way. "What gives, man?!" he yelled. "You said one of us could go in!"

Jeremy cleared his throat. "While you guys were bickering, Candace already went inside."

A few moments later, a helicopter could be heard approaching and it touched down behind the ICC. The gang watched through the fence as two stretchers, Steve on one and Jamie McMurray on the other, were carried out and loaded into the cabin. Candace and Keith Rodden, Jamie McMurray's crew chief, climbed in behind their respective drivers, the cabin door was pulled closed and the chopper lifted into the air, heading for the hospital.

Isabella clung to the fence for support. Her legs no longer felt capable of supporting her. "I killed him."

* * *

_"With the catch fence on the front straightaway in shambles, a coating of fuel, oil and coolant on the asphalt, parts and pieces of racecar scattered all over just past the flag stand, and the smoldering remains of the #28 Ford still sitting in the grass, it's going to be a while before this race gets back underway. Most of the drivers have climbed from their cars on the backstretch while the cleanup and fence repair continues. And amidst all of this, two drivers, Steve Marcis and Jamie McMurray, have been airlifted to nearby Irish Hills Medical Center. Jamie McMurray is being checked out for smoke inhalation whilst trying to help free Steve Marcis from his burning car, and Steve himself, well, we are waiting on further details regarding his injuries, but from what we could see from here, we're betting on several broken bones and some nasty burns. _

_"When we know more, we will pass it along, but for now the Pure Michigan 400 is under the red flag after a blown right rear tire sent race leader Steve Marcis on wild ride into the catch fence, collecting Jamie McMurray. We'll be back after these words from our sponsors."_

**So, how many lines or variations of lines from ****_Talladega Nights _****did you catch?**

**Please review and next chapter soon!**


	4. Bare Boned

Chapter 4: Bare Boned

Candace couldn't help but think about Star Wars.

She wasn't exactly a fan of the movie series, but thanks to her brothers and Jeremy, she'd seen the movies enough times for the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi to slip into her mind. "He's more machine now than man."

The words swirled around in her head as she stared at Steve's lifeless form. He lay on a hospital bed, hooked up to several various life-support machines. She almost didn't recognize him because his sunglasses were not covering his eyes (they were sitting on the table next to the bed) and his hat was missing. She actually was not sure she remembered that Steve had brown hair.

After being rushed to the E.R. and patched up to a relative point, Steve had been brought here, to a room in the intensive care ward. Candace almost could not believe the situation.

She was having flashbacks, too, to the year that most everyone in their gang had nearly been killed on a Valentine's Day time traveling excursion. Steve had spent a little time in the hospital, having had his hands stitched up and a bullet removed from his shoulder, but he'd recovered quickly and was back to recklessly drifting his Mustang around Danville in a week.

That would not be the case this time.

The rest of the team had not yet arrived at the hospital, for they were cleaning up their equipment at track. She had received a phone call from Jeremy, asking about Steve's condition, but the doctors had not told her anything to report. Jeremy said that Phineas and Ferb were on their way and that was where the conversation ended.

It just didn't seem real. Steve never seemed concerned about anything. He went about his business with a sort of bored tone in his voice, never making a big deal about anything. Even when it came to racing, which Candace knew meant more to Steve than anything else in the world, Steve simply smiled at success and disappointment was met with a shrug.

_Wait…he used to get excited. I remember our first ARCA win. He got out of the car and jumped up and down, he was so happy. I think he kissed me on the cheek. Sure, later that day he talked about it like it was nothing, but he was excited! I remember him cracking up in victory lane at Kansas! That was the day Kyle Busch had a straightaway lead on us at the white flag and then ran out of gas. He thought that was the funniest thing he'd ever seen! And when we won the championship last year…_She smiled at that thought. Steve had screamed bloody murder over the radio when he took the checkered flag, to the point that she had trouble hearing anything else for a few hours after.

Then her smile vanished. _Yes. He used to get excited. But now…he barely does anything more than smile. _She thought back to the last race they'd won, which was Pocono in June. A track that the team had struggled at in their previous attempts, Candace was thrilled to have finally devised a setup that was good enough to bring the car to victory lane. And, as a track that Steve had always said threw him for a curve when it came to just navigating it, she'd have thought he would have been thrilled, too. But he wasn't. He just calmly climbed from the car, high-fived his crew and then seemingly disappeared following his interview. _It can't have gotten old. We haven't won __that__ many races. _

Come to think of it, this morning he seemed perfectly normal. Actually, he seemed happier this morning than I've seen him in a while. At least, until Vanessa showed up. Something was different today, on the track, too. Why was he driving like that? And he sounded slightly annoyed on the radio.

Something is definitely different about Steve.

A light knock interrupted Candace's thoughts. She turned her head toward the door as it slowly creaked open and a familiar head poked around the corner. It was not who she was expecting, but she was happy to see him regardless.

"Hey, Candace," he whispered.

"Jamie!" Candace replied quietly, jumping to her feet. She exited the room and pulled the door closed before giving the driver a quick hug. He had changed out of his fire suit into a hospital gown. "I'm so glad you're okay."

"Yeah, they're keeping me overnight for observation," McMurray said. "I'll be fine." He turned his head and coughed a few times. "How's Steve? What'd the doctors say?"

Candace shook her head. "Nothing yet. They're still looking at x-rays."

"He's still unconscious?"

"Yeah," Candace sighed. "They've got him hooked up to about every life support machine they've got."

Jamie leaned against the wall. "Man…this really sucks. I don't think I could have hit him in a worse place. I should have been able to avoid that pretty easily, and I just locked up the right front and couldn't steer."

Candace didn't reply. She wasn't really sure what to say. She just nodded sadly. When Jamie realized she wasn't going to say anything, he turned to leave. "I'll come back and see how things are going before I leave tomorrow."

"Okay. See you, Jamie."

* * *

Last year, when Steve got his pilot's license, he bought a plane, a Gulfstream G450. The first thing he did was bring Phineas and Ferb to see it. Why? He wanted them to modify it so he could carry his Mustang to every race.

"You're not gonna have a whole lot of room in the back with a car in there," Phineas said. "Where are you gonna sit?"

Steve raised an eyebrow. "In the pilot's seat."

"You're not hiring a pilot?"

"No. I'll fly it myself. I don't care if there's room for anything in the back. I just want to be able to carry my 'Stang."

Phineas and Ferb looked at each other and shrugged. "Yeah, okay, we can do that."

And so, when the helicopter carrying Steve, Candace, and Jamie McMurray lifted off from the Michigan International Speedway infield, that Ford Mustang found it's way into Phineas's head.

"We have to get to the hospital, ASAP!" Phineas told the gang. "If Steve is in bad shape, we might be able to help him."

"What are you waiting for then?" Buford barked. "We can take care of stuff here. You guys get out of here."

"Steve's Mustang is the fastest thing we have at our current disposal," Phineas said. "Let's go. Baljeet, Vanessa, you're coming with us."

"We are right behind you!" Baljeet said.

"I'm coming, too," Isabella said quietly.

"Fine. Let's go!"

Phineas, Ferb, Isabella, Baljeet, and Vanessa took off at a dead run toward the coach lot. After a quick collaborative search of the inside of Steve's motor coach to locate the keys, they piled into the black and yellow 1970 Ford Mustang, Phineas in the driver's seat. The engine roared to life and Phineas quickly headed for the tunnel out of the infield.

And that's when they hit the traffic. A solid wall of cars blocked their path.

"Grr," Phineas muttered. "I keep forgetting what a NASCAR race does to local traffic."

They sat in stop-and-go traffic for twenty minutes, barely making any progress toward the hospital.

"Is anybody else starting to feel rather helpless?" Baljeet asked.

"Been there for the last ten minutes," Vanessa replied.

"Same," Phineas said.

Baljeet leaned back into the seat. "Oh, good. I thought I was the only one."

They sat in silence for another five minutes or so.

"Why don't we just carry a teleporter around with us for emergencies like this?" Phineas asked. "It's not like we don't have one. We should just carry it around all the time."

Vanessa slammed her fist against the back of the passenger seat, where Ferb sat. "Ferb! We have a teleporter! That's how we got here! Remember?"

Ferb felt his pockets and extracted a small remote. "Oh. So we do."

Isabella spoke up for the first time since getting in the car. "Gee, that would have been rather helpful half an hour ago."

Ferb adjusted the settings so that the teleporter's "molecule collection range" would be wide enough to carry the whole Mustang and everyone inside, set the coordinates, and pressed the big green button. Green electricity began to crackle around the car and then it slowly disappeared, leaving several motorists in awe.

A moment later, the car reappeared in the parking lot of the Irish Hills Medical Center. Phineas swung the Mustang into a parking space and turned the engine off, and then the five took off for the main entrance.

* * *

Candace lifted her head from her hands at the sound of another knock on the door. This time she stood and opened it.

"Hey, sis," Phineas said.

"There you guys are! What took you so long?"

"Don't ask."

Candace stood aside and let Phineas, Ferb, Baljeet, Vanessa and Isabella past her into the room. They surrounded the hospital bed where Steve lay.

"Wow," Vanessa said. "That's, uh…that's bad."

"He looks so…broken," Isabella added solemnly.

Phineas looked at Candace. "Have you heard from the doctor yet?"

"No, not yet."

As if on cue, a graying middle-aged man with a short beard entered the room. His face was friendly, though he didn't exactly look jovial at the moment. He carried a clipboard. "Hello," he greeted. "I'm Dr. Ray Spencer."

"Nice to meet you Dr. Spencer," Phineas said as he shook the doctor's hand. "Though, given the circumstances, I'd have rather never met you."

The Doctor gave a light chuckle. "I think everyone would rather never have the opportunity to meet me." He was suddenly aware of how many people were in the room. "Are you all Mr. Marcis's family?"

"He actually doesn't have any family," Candace said. "We're his friends and…coworkers, I guess. I kinda sounds strange to say we're coworkers."

"Oh. Okay." He glanced at his clipboard. "Now, according the medical records we sent from…" He paused, scanning for the information. "…Danville, Ohio…is that where all of you are from?"

"Yes, sir," Phineas said.

"Right. Says here his emergency contact is one Isabella Garcia-Shapiro."

Isabella had been silently staring at Steve's lifeless face, which appeared to be contorted in pain. She suddenly perked up at the sound of her name. "Me?" she asked, surprised

"You are Ms. Garcia-Shapiro?"

Isabella made her way around the bed over to the doctor. "Yes. Well, not anymore. My last name is Flynn now. But, yes, that's me."

The doctor gave a curt nod. "Good. Since you're here, we don't need to bother contacting you."

"I do not mean to interrupt," Baljeet said, "but do you think you could give us some information on Steve's condition?"

The doctor sighed, the small smile fading from his face. "It's not good," he said, flipping over a page on his clipboard. "It's actually a miracle he's still alive."

Isabella and Vanessa cringed. Meanwhile, the doctor began to run through the list of Steve's many injuries. "Broken left tibia, broken left fibula, broken right knee, several crushed ribs and a broken collar bone. Perforated left lung, internal bleeding just about everywhere. His right arm is burned so badly, it would better to amputate it, and his right torso is basically the same. He's got a grade three concussion that will likely result in some brain damage and memory loss. And worst of all…" Dr. Spencer pinched the bridge of his nose. "I've never even seen anything like this before. His entire spine basically telescoped."

"That's possible?" Candace asked.

"Well, not really. I just couldn't think of another way to describe it. Basically, his spine was compressed top-to-bottom, shortening it by about an inch. Which means, he's likely paralyzed." He sighed. "It won't matter, though, because…in my professional opinion, he's got less than a week to live, even with the life support machines. He'll definitely never regain consciousness."

The room fell deathly silent, the only sounds the whirring of the many machines hooked up to Steve's body.

After what seemed like an eternity, Phineas finally spoke up. "Ferb? Baljeet?" They looked at him. "Think we can do it?"

Ferb glanced over his shoulder at Steve's body. He turned back to Phineas and shrugged.

"What do you think, Baljeet?"

Baljeet shrugged, too. "I suppose it is possible."

"What are you talking about?" Candace asked.

Phineas scratched the back of his neck. "Well…remember how we've been working on figuring out a way to regrow people's amputated limbs?"

"You guys still haven't figured that out yet? It's been, like, four years since you guys started P&F Industries!" Candace exclaimed.

"Yeah…it's a real head-scratcher. But, while we haven't quite figured _that_ out yet, the research has led us to some techniques for rapidly repairing and regrowing tissue from existing material."

Dr. Spencer frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, sorry, Dr. Spencer. I forgot you were here. Let me explain-"

Phineas was cut off when the intercom buzzed. _"Paging Doctor Spencer, report to E.R. immediately!"_

"I don't mean to cut you off, but I am needed elsewhere."

"That's alright, Doc."

The doctor bid them farewell and ran quickly from the room.

"As I was saying," Phineas continued, "we've discovered these techniques, which we call 'Triple R's,' and they've worked well in lab tests, but…we've never actually had the chance to try them out on something that was actually, you know…alive. They're rather…unorthodox, and risky. There's no way of knowing what sort of implications there might be. We might end up killing him."

Candace looked at her brother hard. "I think under the circumstances, Steve would want you to try."

Phineas still looked unsure. Isabella took his hand and looked him in the eye. He could see the sadness on her face. He knew she and Steve were close. "Remember when I was in the hospital? He did everything he could to help you figure out a way to heal me and everybody else. All you can do is try. I don't think Steve would think any less of you if it failed, but he would think less of you for not being willing to try."

Phineas looked to Ferb, Baljeet and Vanessa. "Whatdya say, guys? Shall we give it a shot?"

"Let us go for it!" Baljeet yelled. Ferb gave a thumbs up and Vanessa nodded.

"Alright." A determined smile crossed Phineas's face. "Let's get home. We've got a life to save."

* * *

Dr. Doofenshmirtz sighed and collapsed onto the couch into the break room at P&F Industries. Perry climbed up next to him and leaned his head against Doof's shoulder. The two of them had been up all night working on Doof's latest project. It was a time sensitive project, and each step had to be completed quickly before the isotopes decayed, so they hadn't been able to take a break. Now that it had finally reached the point where it had to sit and incubate for a few days, the two were utterly exhausted.

"Whew! I was starting to think we'd never finish!" Doofenshmirtz said. Perry nodded in reply. "It feels so good to sit down." Perry nodded again. Doof looked at his watch. "Oh, and look at that. We finished just in time for the pre-race show." He grabbed the remote off the end table and flicked on the wall-sized TV opposite the couch. "It's too bad we couldn't go. Michigan is our track. We own that joint! You know?"

Perry replied with a half-hearted nod. His eyes were already drooping. Having lived over twice the lifespan of a normal platypus, Perry thought it was incredible that he still felt energetic and lively. Though at the moment, he was feeling his age deeply. He doubted he'd even last until opening ceremonies before he fell asleep.

He was right. Doofenshmirtz lasted a little bit longer falling asleep just before they waved the green flag. They slept through the first 100 laps and Steve's horrific wreck, and were still out cold when Phineas, Ferb, Baljeet, Vanessa and an unconscious Steve on a hospital bed materialized seemingly out of thin air in the lab.

Vanessa and Baljeet set about hooking up Steve to the life support machines. Phineas and Ferb appeared in the doorway a moment later, dressed in scrubs and prepared for surgery.

"Okay, I'm gonna need a hundred cc's of Formula 3B-75, at least thirty clamps, some sponges, and my special mix CD of surgery music, stat!" Phineas announced.

"You have a mix of surgery music?" Baljeet asked as he headed out of the room to prepare to assist the surgery.

"Everything is better with a soundtrack."

* * *

With Steve laid out carefully on the table, the four medical experts gathered around, prepared to tackle the difficult task ahead of them.

"If Isabella was here, she'd tell us to say a prayer, but I don't know any," Phineas said.

"I've got one," Vanessa said.

"Okay, go ahead."

"Dear LORD…please don't let us accidentally kill Steve. Amen."

Phineas rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Vanessa. That's encouraging."

"It occurs to me that this is the first time any of us have actually gone into surgery," Baljeet observed.

"Just pretend you're on M*A*S*H and everything will be fine," Ferb said.

Phineas laughed. "Good idea. Can you hand me that scalpel, BJ?"

"Why do you get to be Hawkeye?"

"Because I do ninety percent of the talking."

"Fine."

"Okay." Phineas took a deep breath. "Here we go." He raised his scalpel and set to work.

* * *

After dropping in on Jamie McMurray to inform him of the situation, Candace and Isabella drove the Mustang back to the racetrack. The pit stall was already cleaned and the team had vacated it, and when the girls searched the garage, they found it empty, as well. Finally, they located the team at the hauler. Everything had been packed up and ready to head for home. Everything, that is, except the racecar, which sat on a flatbed truck nearby.

"Hey!" Adyson greeted them, surprised Candace and Isabella were back from the hospital already. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Phineas and Ferb teleported Steve back home," Candace explained. "They're going to try some medical techniques they came up with to try and save Steve's life."

"Wait! What?" Adyson cried.

"Steve's life?" Jeremy exclaimed. "He's that bad?"

"I told you he was dead." Buford's statement was once again met with glares. "What? Candace just said it!"

"Man, I can't believe it," Adyson said. "What did the doctor say?" Candace listed Steve's injuries while the team listened intently. "Yikes."

"Looks like maybe your engine had a little too much power, huh, Isabella?" Katie said. Then she realized Isabella was no longer there. "Isabella? Where'd she go?"

Candace pointed. Isabella had climbed up on the flatbed truck and was examining the crushed and charred Ford Fusion.

Tears stung Isabella's eyes as she peered into the car, which was mostly just a roll cage and chassis now. The sheet metal body and most of the internal components had either been ripped away or burned. The gray primer which had once colored the steel roll cage had mostly been burned away, leaving the interior of the car bare. The roll cage had been crushed down right above the driver's seat, the sheet metal roof completely gone.

Isabella spotted something down inside the car, wrapped around the steel tubing next to the seat. She reached in and pulled it out. It was Steve's Ford Racing hat, or what was left of it. Insisting on having it with him at all times, Steve would Velcro the adjustable strap around part of the roll cage every time he strapped into the car0. Now, the brim and part of the front of the crown had been burned away and the white fabric had been blackened. Isabella almost couldn't remember a time that she'd seen Steve without this hat. She couldn't picture him without it perched proudly on his head.

She held the remains of the hat close to her face. "I killed him."

**Hmm…yup.**

**Yeah, nothing from ****_Talladega Nights _****in this chapter. Don't worry, there's gonna be a lot from the movie in a few chapters.**


	5. Workin' For the Weekend

Chapter 5: Workin' For the Weekend

_Monday, August 17, 2020_

"Now what do we do?" Coltrane asked.

Candace looked up at him. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "Do we keep racing? Or are we sidelined without Steve?"

Candace looked uncertain. She shook her head. "I don't know."

The race team had shown up for work as usual, but without a driver, the team felt lost. Should they even be working to prepare their car for Bristol? Was there a point? They sat around in the shop in silence, as if looking for an answer, but not finding one.

Stacy cleared her throat. "I almost hate to bring this up, but…I know Phineas and Ferb don't care, but we have other sponsors besides P&F Industries, like Totally Tools, John Deere, and Ford Ecoboost that have already paid to advertise on our car. They're going to be very disappointed when their car doesn't show up on race day, especially considering that car is the point leader."

Candace shook her head again. "Well, that's one thing we can forget about."

"What?"

"The championship. Points are awarded to the driver, not the car. Without Steve behind the wheel, we can't win the championship."

Adyson jumped down from where she'd been perched on a tool box. "But not the owner's points."

"Owner's points?"

"Yeah. The owner's points are awarded to the _car_. Okay, technically, they're awarded to the owner of the car, which would be Phineas and Ferb, but they're tallied by the car number because…you know…multi-car teams."

Candace nodded. "You're right. We can still win the Owner's Championship as long as we keep the car on the track. It doesn't matter who the driver is."

"But," Jeremy interjected, "should we keep racing without Steve?"

The shop fell silent.

"Look," Katie said, "Steve practically single-handedly built this team from the ground up. He wouldn't want to see it fall apart just because he's not here. If he were currently conscious, he would say, 'Forget about me. Find somebody to drive the car, buckle down and go win the Owner's Championship."

"And, we still have fans," Milly added. "Even if their driver isn't in the car, we owe it to them to at least keep the car on the track."

Candace couldn't help but smile. "Katie, Milly, you're right. We don't know if Steve will pull through or not, but he wouldn't want us to give up. So let's get out there and win the Owner's Championship!"

"Yeah!" Jeremy cried. "For Steve!"

"For Steve!" they yelled.

"So the million dollar question is," Buford said, "who do we get to drive the car?'"

Everyone's sudden enthusiasm vanished as they realized the hole in their plan. They still needed a driver.

"Well, the obvious choice would be Phineas," Candace said. "After all, not only has he raced before, but Steve taught him everything he knows. Of course, that's not possible, because Phineas is occupied with healing Steve."

"And likely will be for a couple weeks," Gretchen added.

"Right. So who else could we get to drive?"

"What about you, Candace?" Irving suggested. "You know these cars inside and out and you've spent so much time working with Steve that, you know, maybe you've absorbed some of his expertise…through osmosis."

"Irving?"

"Yes, Candace?"

"That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Besides, my neck is too long for the HANS devise."

"Okay, how about Buford? He doesn't even have a neck."

"What'd you just say, dweeb?"

"Nothing," Irving said quickly. "I didn't say anything."

"Regardless, I'm too wide. I'd throw off the balance of the car. What about you, Jeremy?" Buford said, pointing at the man in question.  
"Me?"

"Sure. You're a smart guy and you do enough work on the cars to know them well."

Jeremy considered it. "Hmm…what do you think, Candace?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"I just want my wife's permission before I do something potentially dangerous to my well-being."

Candace shrugged. "I think you could be a good driver, and we are never running engines that powerful ever again, so if you want to drive, drive."

Jeremy nodded. "Okay. Okay, I'll do it."

"No."

Everyone turned toward the source of the voice. Isabella stood from where she'd been sitting on the floor behind one of the racecars. She walked over to join the rest of the group.

"What?" Jeremy asked, confused.

"No. You are not driving the car and neither is anyone else here."

"Then who's gonna race?" Stacy asked.

"Me."

She was met with blank stares.

"But…you're a girl," Buford said.

"So what?"

"Girls suck at racing."

"And exactly what proof are you basing your speculation on?"

"Danica Patrick."

Isabella shrugged. "Danica Patrick sucks."

"Exactly."

"Well, in case you haven't noticed, I'm not Danica Patrick."

"Hold on a sec, guys," Candace interrupted. "Isabella, why are you insisting that you're the one taking over as driver?"

"Because it's my fault Steve got hurt. I should have known that engine had too much power. It was flat-out dangerous. Besides," Isabella continued, "If Jeremy takes over, we loose our front tire changer. We have to replace him, too. And this team is so small that, whoever we substitute as the front tire changer will likely have to have a replacement, and so will that person, and before you know it, our whole team dynamic is ruined."

"Well, you're the engine builder," Holly pointed out. "If not you, who will build the engines?"

"We'll buy engines from Roush/Yates and then during the week when we're not at the track, I'll take them apart and rebuild them to my standards. I can do that faster than I can build them from scratch."

The gang fell silent, seemingly searching for another reason for Isabella to not be the driver.

"What about Phineas?" Gretchen asked.

Isabella folded her arms and narrowed her eyes at the bespectacled girl. "What _about_ Phineas?"

"What do you think he's going to say about you driving a racecar? The reason that Steve is now on the brink of death?"

"Well, Phineas isn't here right now, is he? He's a little busy trying to keep Steve from going over that brink. Now what are you all staring at me for? We have a lot to do and even less time to do it than usual because, as I you may recall, this week is a Saturday night race, so we have one less day to get everything ready and down to Bristol."

Adyson stepped forward. "Isabella's right, guys. Come on! We have work to do!" She quickly assumed her role as shop manager, barking out orders and rallying the team. "Gretchen, Holly, get the seat out of chassis 211. Jeremy, you take Isabella and get a new seat made. Stacy, call NASCAR and change the name on the entry list. Django, change the decal above the window to Isabella's name. Actually, just change the name above the driver's side window, leave Steve's name on the passenger side." She stalked over to the racecar in question, looking it over to make sure it was race ready. "Um, would somebody like to explain to me why there's no engine in this car?"

"Okay, see-" Milly began.

"No! I don't want excuses!" She scanned the paper taped to the side panel that listed each specific part number for every component that made up this car, including the engine. "Get engine 357-A out of the engine shop and get it in this car, now!"

Adyson turned back to the rest of the crew. "The rest of you, get on with your normal jobs. We still gotta get everything out of the hauler, replace the speedway stuff with the short track gear and put everything back in again! Milly!" she yelled, whipping back around as she remembered something else. The target of her outburst jumped as Adyson yelled. "Please tell me at least the back-up car is ready!"

"Uh…which one was the back-up for Bristol?"

"Good Lord, Milly! Do I have to do everything myself?"

She turned around again. The crew hadn't moved and were staring at Adyson. "What are you all still standing here for? GO!"

They quickly scattered, even Buford, who normally would have argued with Adyson.

Isabella watched everyone set to work, determination rising in her system. She was going to win this Owner's Championship if it killed her.

Well, maybe not if it killed her, but she was still going to win.

* * *

Vanessa wiped the sweat from Phineas's brow as he threaded the needle through Steve's the skin, stitching up the incisions.

"Thanks, Vanessa."

He finished the final stitch, tied it off and cut the needle free. He let out a deep breath. "Finished."

It had taken all night, but the surgery was finally over. Now all that was left was to wait, monitor Steve's bodily functions, and pray.

* * *

_Tuesday, August 18, 2020_

With little time to spare, some spare equipment was loaded into the old box trailer from the team's ARCA days along with the team's testing car, and, after "borrowing" Steve's F-150 to pull the trailer, headed off to Danville Speedway. Along with Isabella were Candace, Buford, and Jeremy, for no more crew members could be spared at the race shop.

The testing car, along with the primary and backup cars for Bristol, had all been refitted for Isabella. The new seats had been installed and the steering wheel and pedals had been readjusted to make Isabella as comfortable as possible behind the wheel.

Now, dressed in her new red-and-green fire suit, Isabella was going to run a few practice laps to gain some experience in her new ride.

"Ready for your first experience behind the wheel?" Candace asked.

Isabella nodded. "Yes, yes I am."

"Good. I'd try to give you some pointers, but I honestly have no idea what Steve does behind the wheel. He just drives," she said with a shrug.

"That's okay, Candace. I think I can figure it out."

"For your sake, I certainly hope so."

Buford and Jeremy rolled the racecar out onto pit road. Buford retrieved Isabella's helmet from where it sat in the seat and held it out to her. "Your chariot of death awaits."

"Why would you call it that?" Isabella asked with a sigh.

"Because it killed Steve."

"Steve is still alive, Buford," Candace reminded him. "Now go make yourself useful somewhere else."

* * *

Strapped into the racecar, Isabella took a deep breath. Jeremy had just secured the window net for her and it was time to turn some laps. She flipped the ignition on and held the START switch. The engine instantly growled to life and she scanned the gauges on the dash.

The radio crackled in her ear. _"Radio check, one, two. Topeka, Kansas, Topeka, Kansas. You got me, Isabella?"_

She pressed the little square button on the steering wheel. "Loud and clear, Candace."

_"Whenever you're ready."_

"Okay." Isabella took another deep breath and shifted into first gear. Then she slowly accelerated out onto the racetrack.

* * *

Phineas looked up from his clipboard and turned as the door to the observation room slid open. Vanessa, wearing a lab coat just like Phineas's, walked in.

"Hey, Vanessa."

"Hi, Phineas. How's our patient?" she asked, joining him at the foot of the bed where Steve lay.

"Well, the surgeries were all successful," Phineas said, looking at his clipboard again. "The bone fractures are already in the early stages of fusing back together as are the tears in the left lung."

"What about the brain? And the spinal chord?"

"The vertebrae have all separated and are moving back into their original positions. As for the spinal chord itself and the brain…" He looked at Vanessa and shrugged.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Phineas shrugged again. "Inconclusive."

Vanessa sighed and collapsed onto a nearby stool. "Phineas, can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Do you think I may be partially at fault for this?"

Phineas looked surprised at the question. "What makes you say that?"

Vanessa leaned her head in her hands. "Well…you know how Steve was driving really rough and recklessly?"

"Yeah."

"You and I both know that Steve never races like that. And he sounded annoyed on the radio, too." She paused and stood up again. "Do you think Steve was dwelling on what I said to him that morning? I mean…he seemed pretty upset."

"And that's really saying something, because Steve doesn't really get upset. Like, you know, ever." Phineas put a hand to his chin in thought. "You know, I have noticed recently that Steve hasn't been quite himself." He looked hard at Vanessa. "Do you think maybe…"

"What?"

"Do you think maybe…Steve is longing for female companionship?"

Vanessa glanced over at the unconscious form of the man in question and swallowed a lump in her throat. "I think…I think he took what I said to him that morning to heart…and he was angry at himself, and probably at me, too…so he was driving really hard because he felt like…like…"

"Like he had to prove himself?"

"Yeah…Even though, on the track, he has absolutely noting to prove."

They both stared at Steve in silence for a few minutes.

"I guess all we can do," Phineas finally said, "is wait for him to wake up and ask him."

Vanessa sighed again. "I hope we have the luxury of being able to ask him."

Phineas took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "All we can do is wait. Wait and pray."

* * *

_"Alright, Isabella. Just take it easy for a few laps until you get a feel for the track and the car. Don't just immediately go full-bore."_

Isabella didn't hear Candace's words, or if she did, she ignored them. She accelerated down the back straightaway hard, braked hard, and turned into corner hard. Riding a foot from the wall, she held the wheel over with a white knuckled grip, retaining as much speed as possible. As she exited turn 4, she aggressively floored the throttle…a little too aggressively. The rear wheels lost traction and spun, and the rear end came around.

Her teeth gritted, Isabella wrenched the wheel to the right and let off the gas, trying hard to regain control, but it was too late. She stood on the brake with both feet, and the car, now facing backwards, slid to a stop.

_"What was that?" _Candace asked.

Once again, Isabella did not reply. She downshifted to first gear and floored the accelerator again. The rear wheels spun wildly, the engine whining against the rev limiter, and, with a twist of the steering wheel, the car easily spun around again, facing the right way. Without even letting off, she jammed the stick into second gear. The wheels regained grip and the Fusion took off down the front straightaway. She up-shifted without the clutch. She didn't need it. Isabella was very skilled in driving a manual transmission. She reached fourth gear by the end of the straightaway.

She drove through turns 1 and 2 in much the same way as she had 3 and 4 and once again punched the gas on exit. The car broke loose again, but Isabella still held down the throttle, wrestling with the steering wheel. Somehow, she managed to keep the racecar in a straight line.

Watching from pit road, Jeremy's eyes widened. "Huh. That was a nice save."

Buford folded his arms, unimpressed. "Yeah, but those tires ain't gonna last five laps if she keeps slidin' around like that."

"Give her a chance, Buford," Candace told him. "She's new at this, and she just flat-spotted all four tires when she spun out."

They watched the racecar speed through 3 and 4 again, and this time the car only broke loose half as bad as it had the previous corner. With each lap Isabella completed, the car seemed to gain stability as the she gained a feel for the car and the track, even as the tires quickly wore out.

"Okay, I'm slightly more impressed," Buford admitted.

Candace tore her eyes away from the track and glanced at her laptop, where the telemetry was recorded. "Huh."

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Isabella steering the Ford back onto pit road, braking perfectly to a stop in the pit stall where Candace, Jeremy, and Buford stood. Without waiting for any of them to say anything, Isabella dropped the window net and climbed out of the car, removing her helmet and HANS device.

"Okay, that's enough for today," Isabella stated, smoothing out her long hair and grabbing her Ford hat from the tool box. "How'd I do?"

A bit surprised by her curtness, Candace, Jeremy, and Buford stared. "Um, uh…" Candace grabbed her laptop. "Well, aside from spinning, your lap times…weren't half bad. They were pretty good, actually."

"Good. Alright, I've had enough for today. Let's go back to the shop."

Candace snapped out of her confused trance. "Excuse me! I'm the crew chief here, and I'm in charge of the testing! I'll say when we're done!"

Isabella crossed her arms. "Fine. Are we done?"

Candace sighed. "Yes."

"Good. Let's go home." Isabella stalked off toward the trailer.

"Does Isabella seem a little…different?" Buford asked Jeremy.

"Yes. Yes she does."

* * *

_Wednesday, August 19, 2020_

Isabella climbed from the racecar and removed her helmet. "Any better?" she asked Candace.

"Yup. You knocked off two-tenths, average."

Isabella nodded and grabbed her hat off the tool box. Candace could tell Isabella felt like she'd had enough practice.

"Do you feel like you're getting a pretty good handle on the car?" Candace asked.

"Yup." That was all she offered.

"Okay." Candace didn't sound convinced. "Are you ready for 500 miles at Bristol? Possibly the most physically challenging track on the circuit?"

"Uh-huh."

Candace fell silent. She was not used to Isabella being this short and…disgruntled.

Buford broke the silence. "That's good enough for me. Let's go back and make sure everything's packed up and ready to go!"

"You guys go ahead," Isabella said. "I'm gonna go see Phineas at work."

Candace "Does he know you're going to be racing?" she asked slowly.

"He will now." That was where Isabella left it. Her black Plymouth Barracuda was parked beside the truck and trailer, and she climbed in, fired the engine, and drove out of the race track before Candace, Jeremy, or Buford could say anything.

* * *

Baljeet and Dr. Doofenshmirtz turned as the doors slid open behind them.

"Hello, Isabella," Baljeet greeted.

"Hey, guys," she greeted glumly, walking past them and leaning against the rail on the side of Steve's hospital bed. Baljeet and Dr. D watched her with interest as she stared at the broken man.

She noticed that Steve was now bald and a ring of stitches circled his head like a halo. Ferb had had to shave off Steve's hair in order to cut the top of the skull off and perform open-brain surgery. Usually a patient must be conscious during brain surgery, but thanks to new techniques and technology discovered by Ferb and Baljeet, they were able to (hopefully) repair Steve's brain while he was unconscious. It wasn't as if they'd had a choice.

"How is he?" she finally asked.

"Bone reconstruction is good, and the lung is healing quickly," Doofenshmirtz told her.

Baljeet looked at his clipboard as if hoping new information would have appeared since he'd looked at it last. "Nervous system…"

When he didn't finish the thought, Isabella nervously turned to face Baljeet. "What about it?"

Baljeet and Dr. D shared a look. "We don't know," they said together.

"Whadaya mean you don't know?"

"Uh…" Doofenshmirtz looked away. "We can't tell."

"We will not be able to until Steve regains consciousness," Baljeet added. "_If _he ever-"

"Don't say that!" Isabella growled at him. "He _will_ wake up."

Dr. D and Baljeet looked at each other again but said nothing.

"Where's Phineas?" Isabella asked.

"In the break room with Ferb and Perry the Platypus," Dr. Doofenshmirtz told her. "They were up all night monitoring Steve. As of now, he's still in critical condition."

"Okay. Thanks, guys." She walked toward the doors, which automatically slid open as she approached, but stopped and turned back to look at Steve one more time before leaving the room.

* * *

Phineas awoke with a start when Isabella shook him.

"Wha-?! Oh, hi, Honey."

"Hey." She sat down on the couch next to him, reaching over to pet Perry, who was still asleep on Phineas's lap. She didn't say anything for a minute, and Phineas though she looked upset about something.

"Isabella? Are you okay?"

She shrugged and shifted positions so she could lean against her husband's shoulder.

"Are you still beating yourself up about the crash?"

"A little. I mean, technically, he asked for the extra power." She thought about it for a second. "Okay, technically, he didn't ask for it. I just built the engine, suggested Michigan, and he said let's go for it." She reached for Phineas's hand at the same time he reached for hers. "I should have known that kind of speed would be so dangerous."

"Well, to be fair, in three and a half years, this is the first time Steve has actually _crashed_. He's spun out a few times, hit a couple walls, but he's never wrecked so badly that he couldn't finish the race. And those incidents are so few and far between that having an extra…what, two, two hundred ten horsepower?…didn't really seem like a bad idea. Maybe to another driver it would be, but…" Isabella didn't reply. He leaned closer to her so that he could see her face. "Don't beat yourself up. I don't think Steve would blame you."

"I know. He's a good guy."

"He is. He's very forgiving."

Phineas gave her a short kiss, and Isabella felt a little better. In the days since the wrecik she'd been mad at herself and just in a bad mood overall, but Phineas could always make her feel better.

"Speaking of which," Phineas said as he leaned back into the couch, "what have you guys been doing over at the shop?"

"The same thing we'd normally be doing. Packing up for Bristol."

Phineas looked a bit surprised. "Oh, you found a replacement driver?"

Isabella nodded nervously. "Sort of."

"Who?"

"Um…me."

Phineas's eyes briefly widened in surprise. "Really?"

"Yeah. Originally, it was going to be Jeremy, but I sort of went on a bit of a tirade and insisted it was going to be me."

"Aw. Now I wish I could come to the race," Phineas said. "But I gotta stay here and keep an eye on Steve."

"I wish you could be there, too…Wait, you're not at all concerned about me racing?"

"No. Why would I be?"

"Well, the whole reason you can't come to the race is that you have to keep an eye on Steve, who was just almost got killed doing the exact same thing I'm going to be doing."

"True. But…" Phineas shrugged. "It's Bristol. We're talking seventy, maybe eighty miles per hour difference from Michigan. Considering how safe the cars are and how unlikely it is that the car will come off the ground, I don't really think there's a reason to be worried."

"What about two weeks from now at Atlanta?"

Phineas gave a short chuckle. "I'll be worried about your safety two weeks from now in two weeks."

Isabella laughed and kissed Phineas again.

"We've been doing a little testing at Danville Speedway the last two days," she told him.

"Oh, yeah? And how do you feel about it?"

Suddenly realizing she had no idea, Isabella thought about it for a moment. Finally, she reached an answer that she thought was reasonable. "Good. I feel good."

* * *

When the testing crew returned to the Monotreme Motorsports race shop, they were immediately met by Stacy.

"There you guys are. Wait, where's Isabella?"

"She went to see Phineas at P&F," Candace told her. "Why?"

"I wanted to ask Isabella if she wants to change her intro song."

For a number of years now, Bristol Motor Speedway allowed each driver to choose a song to be played when they were introduced to the crowd prior to the race. In seven trips to Bristol, Steve had always chosen the same song: Kids Wanna Rock, by Bryan Adams.

"I don't know if she's planning on coming back here today," Jeremy said, glancing at his watch. It was already after five o'clock.

"Well, I have to know today. Today's the last day it can be changed."

Buford excitedly jumped up and down. "Ooh, ooh, ooh! I'll pick the song for her!"

"Oh, geez, Buford," Candace sighed. "What bad idea do you have now?"

"It's not a bad idea! It's an epic idea!"

Stacy took out her phone to make a note. "Alright, what are you thinking?"

Isabella was probably going to kill him when she heard the song. After all, she and Phineas were fans of Bryan Adams, ever since they had gone with Steve and Jeremy to one of Adam's concerts two years ago.

But, that was not going stop him from making sure Isabella's NASCAR Sprint Cup debut started off in epic fashion.

With an almost evil smile on his face, Buford told Stacy the name of the song.

* * *

_Thursday, August 20, 2020_

With Baljeet, Dr. Doofenshmirtz, Vanessa and now Ginger, who had returned from a study in Switzerland late the previous afternoon, keeping tabs on Steve, Phineas and Ferb headed to the race shop.

The hauler was just leaving as the brothers pulled into the parking lot at Monotreme Motorsports. They waved to Jeremy and Coltrane as they passed by and parked the '69 Chevelle, which was now exclusively Ferb's, near the front doors. They met Isabella and Candace in the lobby.

"Good morning, girls," Phineas greeted.

"Hi, Phineas," they replied.

"Everyone else already left?"

"Yup," Candace reported. The team had a Ford E-350 van that transported the crew members traveling to the race by air to the airport. Today, Candace and Isabella had stayed behind to get a ride from Phineas and Ferb.

They loaded the girls' luggage into the back of the Chevelle and piled in, heading for the airport.

* * *

Since Phineas and Ferb didn't have tickets, they could only accompany Isabella and Candace as far as the security line.

"Bye, sis," Phineas said, hugging his sister.

"Bye, Phineas."

He leaned closer to her ear and whispered, "Make sure Isabella stays safe. I'm not really worried about her, but…you know."

She gave him a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. I'll take care of her."

Ferb moved to say goodbye to Candace, and Phineas gave Isabella a hug.

"Good luck," he told her. "I'll be with you in spirit and we'll be watching on TV."

Isabella didn't reply. She just squeezed Phineas tighter. When they pulled apart, Phineas looked into her eyes. "I know I said I'm not worried, but even so…please, promise me you'll be careful."

"I will."

"Okay. I'll see you Sunday afternoon." They kissed goodbye and then Phineas and Ferb stepped back and watched Isabella and Candace make their way through the security line. When the girls had reached the other side, they turned back and waved to the brothers, and then headed deeper into the airport, toward their gate where the rest of the team was waiting.

"Come on, Ferb. Let's head back to work. We have to move a TV into the observation room."

**Well, that was a fun chapter to write. Really long, too. Again, no ****_Talladega Nights_**** references here. I think there will be one or two in the next chapter.**

**Funny thing I noticed: I had to go back and look at ****_P&F Industries 5point5 _****because I couldn't remember if the Chevelle was a '69 or a '70, and while I was there, I noticed that Steve's Mustang is actually a Mach 1, which I did not remember. But, that's awesome! The Mach 1 is way cooler than the regular 1970 Mustang. Just thought I'd remind everyone and point that out.**


	6. Daddy Dearest

**So, for those of you who aren't racing fans, I hope the first few paragraphs of this chapter will help you understand just how difficult it is.**

**There's a few parallels to Talladega Nights in this chapter, but they're not very obvious ones. They're sort of…vague connections. Enjoy!**

Chapter 6: Daddy Dearest

_Date: August 21, 2020_

_Location: Bristol Motor Speedway_

_Event: Irwin Tools Night Race, First Practice_

Isabella jerked the wheel hard to the right as she exited turn 2, wrestling to keep the car in a straight line. She slightly over corrected and as she turned back left, the right side of the car just scraping the wall.

_"Bring it in, bring it in, bring it in," _Candace groaned over the radio.

Feeling a miffed at herself, Isabella pulled down pit road and steered to the garage. "Garage" was actually a relative term. Since the haulers took up most of the space in the infield, there wasn't room to build a garage. So, each team erected a small pole tent to park the car under to shade the crew from the intense summer sun while they worked. And, since all three major NASCAR series ran at Bristol on the same weekend, the tents were taken down at the end of practice and the cars loaded back into the haulers to make room for the next series to work.

The high-banked, tight turns of Bristol were totally different compared to the relatively flat turns of Danville Speedway. Candace and Buford had set up the car the same way they always did for Steve, but it just wasn't comfortable for Isabella's driving style. Unfortunately, when they tried to adjust the car for her, the balance was majorly screwed up, as was the grip. The car was now haphazardly sliding around on the hot, slick concrete. Isabella's efforts to keep the car off the wall were valiant to say the least, but she'd finally lost the fight with just a few minutes left in practice. The scrape was barely enough to scuff the paint, but it was obvious they needed to take a big swing to make the Ford handle. Worst of all, since they struggled so much just trying to make the car handle in race trim, they hadn't been able to make a single mock-qualifying run.

Isabella gently braked to a stop under the team's tent and killed the ignition. There wasn't enough time in the practice session to make another run, so she dropped the window net and climbed out. She was breathing hard as she removed her helmet.

"You okay?" Candace asked her as the rest of the team set to work on the car. "You look exhausted."

"I _am _exhausted." She let her knees bend and sank to the ground, leaning against the side of the racecar. "I remember Steve saying this track was physically taxing, but…man! I didn't think it was that bad."

Candace wistfully looked up at the sky. "I seem to remember him drenched in sweat after this race last year and asking Buford to find a bucket of ice water to throw at him."

Isabella picked herself up, still balancing herself against the racecar. "How am I gonna run 500 miles? Especially since this thing doesn't drive at _all_."

"I don't know. I'm drawing a blank here. I have no ideas."

"Maybe Buford has some."

Candace looked around. "Speaking of which…where _is_ Buford?"

"I haven't seen him," Jeremy said, setting down his air gun. He'd just removed the left front tire. "He disappeared right after you went out on that run."

Katie lifted herself up on the toolbox and scanned the sea of multicolored team shirts and hats. "There he is!" she called. "He's coming."

Sure enough, Buford was strolling toward them, weaving through the crowd. "Hey, guys," he said.

Candace put her hands on her hips. "Where have you been? We've got work to do!"

"I know. That's why I've been wandering around trying to see what other teams are doing. It's not like you can be super secretive in this place."

"That's cheating, Buford," Isabella said.

"Hold on, Isabella." Candace looked at Buford. "Did you find out anything?"

Isabella was shocked. "Candace!"

"Well, we aren't getting anywhere otherwise!"

Buford cleared his throat. "If you ladies are done bickering…no, I did not find out anything," he said with a shrug. "Turns out, you can't really tell how other cars are set up just by looking at them from fifteen feet away."

"Then where were you all that time?"

"I was chatting with some other crew guys. Isabella, are you aware that the car chief on the 20 team is named Jason Shapiro?"

Isabella shrugged. "Yeah, so what?"

"You used to be a Shapiro. Well, half of a Shapiro, anyway."

"Yeah. It's a relatively common name. So what?"

"Well…" Buford looked nervous. "It got me to thinkin'…we've known you a long time…and I don't think you ever told us about your father."

Everyone working on the car stopped what they were doing and stared at Isabella, waiting for her answer.

"I…I…" Isabella stuttered. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Why not?" Buford asked.

Isabella narrowed her eyes at him. "Because I don't." Then to everyone: "Quit staring at me and get back to work!" she barked. "Get this car drivable! Now!"

And she stormed away. Everyone watched her leave, shocked at what they'd just seen.

Candace managed to snap out of her trance first. "Come on, guys. Back to work. Let's get Irving down from the spotter stand so we can run some simulations. I think I want to try shimming out the left front shock and moving some weight to the left side."

She turned around again, watching Isabella force her way through the "garage area." Candace sighed. Isabella's father was not something she'd thought about before, but now that Buford had brought it up, she really wanted to know. Especially if Isabella was that sensitive about it.

But for the moment, she had a racecar to set up.

"Okay, Buford, I want to- Hey! Where'd he go now?"

* * *

_Date: August 21, 2020_

_Location: Bristol Motor Speedway_

_Event: Irwin Tools Night Race, Qualifying_

Isabella stood next to her car on pit road, waiting her turn to make a qualifying run. She'd drawn 32nd and the first car had only just gone out, so she had a while to wait.

Second practice had gone a little smoother than the first. After switching to slightly softer springs and moving some weight around, the car finally changed for the better. It was by no means perfect, but at least it was drivable.

"Hey, Isabella," a voice called.

She turned and found Jamie McMurray walking up to her. "Hey, Jamie."

Jamie McMurray held out his hand, but Isabella pushed it aside and gave the driver a quick hug.

"I'll admit I was a bit surprised that you were taking over the car."

Isabella released him. "Yeah, I kinda was, too."

"Candace said Steve is doing…mediocre."

"Yeah. I'm worried."

Jamie decided to change the subject. "What about you? How's the car? Are you feeling more comfortable behind the wheel?"

"A little. It was just okay in practice. Still a little free and snappy."

Jamie nodded and gave her a friendly smile. "I'm pulling for ya. Unless, you know, I'm leading and you're right behind me, then I'm not."

Isabella laughed. "Yeah, I know how it is."

"Don't be tempted to overdrive the corner when you go out," Jamie said as he walked back to his own car.

"Thanks, Jamie. Good luck!"

* * *

The NASCAR official waved to Isabella and she accelerated off pit road. Instead of following the apron around to the backstretch as she would be required to do during the race, she drove straight up onto the banking in turn 1 and accelerated as quickly as she could, shifting up through the very short gears.

Tracking the outside wall to build momentum, she made her way through turns 3 and 4 and took the green flag.

_Hard brake…let it roll, let it roll, light gas…harder…harder…go!_

She repeated the process through 3 and 4, tip-toeing to keep the car from breaking loose. The white flag waved and she had the option of making a second lap. She took it, circling the tiny track again and coming back to the checkered flag. Once past the finish line she hit the kill switch and coasted back to pit road.

"How'd I do?" she asked Candace over the radio.

_"Not too bad. Currently 11__th__ on the board. First lap was better than the second."_

"Yeah, I gunned it a little hard out of four that second time and had to gather it back up."

Isabella returned to pit road and took the car behind the wall to pack it up for the night. She watched Jamie McMurray run his qualifying laps. He ran 8th.

Once the remaining cars had qualified, Isabella had dropped to 16th.

"Not bad considering this is your first race," Candace told her.

Isabella nodded. "Yeah. Not too shabby. If we can just tighten up the car a little on exit I think we'll be in pretty good shape tomorrow night."

* * *

Steve raised his right arm and pointed a finger, a blackened, somewhat twisted finger, at Isabella. "You." His ever-present dark sunglasses were missing, so his eyes, black and lifeless, looked straight through Isabella as his mouth curled into a displeased frown. "You did this to me."

"No!"

The mangled man staggered out of the shadows toward Isabella, his arm still outstretched at her. "You took my life away from me."

Isabella backed away, but found she was boxed in by the racecar behind her. She raised her hands to her face defensively. "I'm sorry!"

"Sorry isn't good enough! You ruined me! My life was perfect, and you took it all away from me!" Steve spat, flecks of blood spewing out at her. "I finally realized my dreams, and you destroyed them!"

He was right in front of her now. She turned away and stumbled backwards, landing on the hood of the Fusion as he leaned in close to her. He smiled evilly.

"Remember Matthew 5:38? 'An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth?'" Steve slowly raised his left hand, which he'd been hiding behind his back. In it he held a four-foot length of steel roll cage tubing, the ends jagged from rough cutting. "Remember?"

Isabella shuttered and pulled her legs up onto the hood of the car, trying to propel herself backwards as Steve raised the pipe above his head. "W-what are you doing?"

His evil grin grew wider. A few of his teeth were out of place, too. "Justice."

He swung the pipe down. Isabella screamed.

Isabella shot upright, breathing hard. She was in bed. In her and Phineas's motor coach. Outside the track at Bristol Motor Speedway. She'd had a nightmare.

She twisted around to see the time on her alarm clock. When she did, she realized she was drenched in sweat, her black hair matted to her forehead and stuck to the back of her neck. The clock read 2:17am.

She threw off the blankets and was immediately met with a chill as the air-conditioning met her moist skin. She threw her legs over the side of the bed and headed into the bathroom, still breathing hard.

In the tiny bathroom, Isabella turned on the faucet and splashed some cold water on her face. Her eyes found the mirror. _I look like a wreck, _she thought. Not only that, her eyes were slightly bloodshot. Her legs feeling weak, she sat down on the toilet seat, holding her head in her hands.

_Oh my God…what if Steve dies? I killed him. _She sighed. _I really wish Phineas were here. _

Feeling sticky from the sweat, she peeled off her soaked t-shirt and cotton shorts and hopped into the shower. When she felt clean again, she put on some fresh clothes, but instead of going back to bed she went out to the living room couch and flipped on the TV. There was nothing good on at this time of night, so she watched an infomercial for some new vacuum cleaner that was somehow better than every other brand.

Eventually she dozed off again, but she slept fitfully, her dreams filled with more images of a zombified Steve. But then Steve faded away, replaced by something else. It was a dark figure, seemingly nothing more than a silhouette. And her mother. Her mother held it's hand. She didn't know specifically who the figure was, but she knew what it represented. It was her father.

She awoke again. Through the window, she could see it was no longer dark. The outside world was just barely lit by the first few rays of Tennessee sunlight. Twisting her head around, she could see the digital clock on the microwave. It wasn't even 6 o'clock yet.

The dreams bothered her. Wishing more than ever that Phineas was with her, she retreated to the bedroom and retrieved her phone from the counter beside the bed. She dialed and put the phone to her ear. On the fifth ring, she heard a muffled _"Hello?"_

"Candace? I know it's really early, but…do you think we could talk for a while?"

* * *

Isabella and Candace sat in folding chairs under the awning of Isabella's motor coach, each holding a mug of coffee. Since Candace had arrived, the only thing Isabella had said was "Want some coffee?"

Since they'd sat down, neither had spoken. Being that it was usually abuzz with activity, the coach lot seemed almost deathly quiet this early in the morning.

Candace took a sip from her mug, which, by the way, was emblazoned with the number 28 and the P&F Industries logo. Then she set the mug down on the ground beside her. "Isabella?"

Isabella looked up at her.

"What's on your mind?"

Isabella took a deep breath. "I want to tell you…about…my father."

Candace nearly jumped out of her seat. She wasn't expecting Isabella to bring up that topic. "Okay."

Isabella leaned forward on her thighs, staring off into the distance. She appeared to be deep in thought. "I…I never met my dad. He left before I was born." She fell silent again. "I've only asked my mom about him once. She started crying and begged me not to ask about my father again."

Candace nodded slowly. "What do you know about him?"

"Oh, no, that's it."

"That's all you know?"  
Isabella nodded. "I don't even know his name. Just that 'Shapiro' is his last name, because my mom was Garcia before she married him."

Candace was confused. "Why are you telling me this, then?"

"Well…I haven't thought about my father in years. There's never really been much reason to, plus there was always something on my mind to distract me from the thought of who he might be. Phineas was my distraction for years. Then when that was resolved, I started building engines and I was always thinking about that. How to improve and all."

"And then yesterday, Buford reminded you."

"Yeah. I didn't sleep well last night. Nightmares. First they were about Steve trying to kill me. Then I kept seeing this shadow…a figure, with my mom. And I knew it was my father." She set down her own coffee mug. "I don't even know why it scared me. I guess it was just…haunting."

Candace wasn't sure what to say. Eventually, she said, "Do you want to try to find him? Meet him?"

Isabella shook her head. "I don't know. I just needed to talk to somebody about it. I just really don't want to race tonight on three or four hours of sleep. I needed to…talk to someone…hopefully go back to bed and get some sleep. I'll tell you what, I've gotten so used to having Phineas next to me, it's hard to sleep without him."

"I know what you mean. On the rare occasion that I'm separated from Jeremy, I have a hard time getting to sleep, too."

Candace noticed something out on the road. Buford was walking toward them with another man that looked familiar but neither of them could place.

"Good morning, girls," Buford greeted. "All ready for race day?"

"I guess," Isabella moaned groggily.

"Great!" Buford said, obviously not paying much attention to her comment. He gestured to the other man. "I'd like to introduce you two to Jason Shapiro, car chief for Matt Kenseth and the number 20 team."

"Toyota…" Isabella growled quietly under her breath, referring to the racecars Matt Kenseth drove. She and Candace stood up and shook Jason's hand. Now they recognized him. Had he been wearing his Husky Tools pit shirt instead of a t-shirt and jeans they would have recognized him before. He had short dark hair and a relatively normal-looking clean-shaven face. But the thing that struck Candace was his silvery-blue eyes.

Why did they look so familiar?

"Nice to meet you," Isabella greeted in a confused tone. She glanced at Buford. "What are you looking so smug about?"

"Well, after we were done on the track yesterday," Buford explained, "Irving and I did a little…research, if you will."

Candace noticed for the first time that Jason was fidgeting nervously.

"Yeah? What kind of research?" Isabella asked skeptically.

"Oh, just some records from the Danville court house." He looked at Jason. "You want to tell her, or should I?"

Jason took a deep breath and looked at Isabella. "Isabella…I'm your daddy."

Candace's eyes widened. Now she knew why Jason's eyes look so familiar! They were exactly like Isabella's! Expecting Isabella's mouth to be hanging open, Candace looked at her. Amazingly, her expression almost hadn't changed.

"What'd you just say?"

"I said I'm your daddy. I married Vivian Garcia in April of 1992."

Isabella could not explain what she did next. She balled her hand into a fist and punched Jason Shapiro square in the face. He stumbled backwards a few steps before falling to the ground.

"Isabella!" Candace cried.

"Ow!" she yelped, shaking her hand. "That hurt my hand!"

Buford quickly helped Jason to his feet. "We'll, uh, we'll see you girls later," Buford said, leading Jason away.

Isabella quickly pulled open the door to the motor coach and climbed inside, Candace right on her tail.

"Isabella! Why did you do that?!"

Isabella pulled a bag of frozen carrots from the freezer and pressed it against the knuckles on her right hand. "Because! That-that-that _guy_ has been the car chief on the number 20 team since before we started Monotreme Motorsports! I remember hearing the name on TV!" She stepped closer to Candace. "Look. The first two and a half years we were racing, I was still Isabella Garcia-Shapiro. And I know for a fact that my name was all over the place, people talking about the female engine builder that was winning all the races. Steve thanked me on live TV all the time, and used my full name. I have tapes to prove it! There's no way that…'Jason' never once heard my name and connected the dots. I could understand if I had been Isabella Flynn the whole time, or if I was just Isabella Garcia, but for two and a half years, the name that was in the news was Isabella Garcia-Shapiro! How many Garcia-Shapiro's could there possibly be on the planet besides me and my mom? And he never was the least bit curious? He never thought to come ask me, 'Hey, your mom wouldn't happen to be Vivian Garcia-Shapiro?'"

"Maybe he didn't want to meet you!" Candace yelled. "Did you ever think about that?"

"Why wouldn't he?"

"Well, for one thing, he has a family."

"That doesn't change the fact that I'm his daughter!"

Candace was out of rebuttals. She shook her head in disgust. "Fine. But you are still a driver in this field, and if word gets out about this, you're gonna be all over the news for a different reason. What if NASCAR suspends you for that? Huh? Then what?"

"I don't know, Candace. But I am not going to apologize to him." She fished her phone from her pocket. "I need to call Phineas."

Shaking her head again, Candace made her way out of the motor coach. "Just get over your anger before the green flag tonight, okay? Road rage is not acceptable or safe on a racetrack."

"Yeah, yeah." Isabella dialed Phineas's contact and put the phone to her ear.

Candace slammed the door shut. She was shocked at Isabella. And now, she had a whole new reason to be worried, too.

* * *

When the "garage" opened a few hours later, Jason Shapiro made his way to his team's hauler. The rest of the crew was already there, milling around, unpacking things for the third time that weekend, and moving equipment to the team's pit stall. Matt Kenseth himself was there, too, in the hauler with crew chief Jason Ratcliff. As usual, Matt held a Starbucks cup, and he and Ratcliff were looking at a computer spreadsheet.

The driver and crew chief looked up as Jason walked into the hauler. "'Morning, guys," he greeted solemnly.

Matt frowned. "What happened to you, man?" he asked, noticing the bandage on Jason's nose.

Jason sighed. "Oh, nothing much."

"Nothing much? You look like Kurt did when Jimmy Spencer broke his nose back in '02!" Matt said with a chuckle. "Did you badmouth the Dillon boys in front of Richard or something?"

"No. This morning I found out my daughter is driving the 28 car, and she didn't take it well."

Matt nearly choked on his coffee. "You got punched in the nose by sweet little Isabella Flynn? And…she's your daughter?"

Jason held up a hand. "I don't want to talk about it, Matt."

"Okay, fine. Oh, um, before I forget, Todd had a question for you about the rear-sway bar."

"He in the pit?"

"Yeah."

"I'll go see him right now. Thanks."

No sooner had Jason left the hauler, Matt slapped Ratcliff on the shoulder. "Dude, Jason got his nose broke by a girl!"

**Okay, first, let me just say that I know nothing about Jason Shapiro. (Yes, he is really the car chief for Matt Kenseth.) I do know what he looks like, but I have no idea what his personality is like or who his family is (I'm assuming he's married) and, obviously, since he is a real person, he is not Isabella's father. I thought that up to add some more drama to the story and to make another parallel to ****_Talladega Nights_****. I think it will be another interesting piece of the story.**

**Also, I know that in "Love at First Byte" Vivian is seen with a guy who is probably Mr. Garcia-Shapiro, but since this is not for certain, I'm assuming that is a guy Vivian was dating or something so that this story will work.**

**Also, I know the last section might be a little confusing because both the crew chief and the car chief on Matt Kenseth's team are named Jason. (Be glad Jason Tate, the jackman on the 20 team, wasn't in that scene, too! I kid you not, there are three people named Jason on Matt Kenseth's pit crew. There's also two people named John, a Jacob, a Joe, a Jarrad, a Jesse, and a Jerold. Almost half of Matt Kenseth's at track crew has a name that starts with a "j." You can't make this stuff up! ) So, just to clarify, for the remainder of the story, I will only refer to Jason Ratcliff as "Ratcliff" and Jason Shapiro as "Jason." (I doubt Jason Tate, or any of the other #20 crew, will make an appearance, so don't worry about them.)**

**Please review! Racing action in the next chapter!**


	7. Fallen Gladiator

**I hope you're all excited because now we finally find out what song Buford picked for Isabella to be introduced to! And, you know, short track racing action, as promised in the description.**

**Also, I have a poll up on my profile page. It's a fairly pointless poll, but I would love to hear what you guys are thinking.**

Chapter 7: Fallen Gladiator

_Date: August 22, 2020_

_Location: Bristol Motor Speedway_

_Event: Irwin Tools Night Race_

Bristol Motor Speedway's small size affected the orientation of opening ceremonies, too. Instead of walking out onto a stage built onto a flatbed truck with a large backdrop to hide the drivers from view until their names are called, the competitors enter the track from under the grandstands. Through an opened gate in the outside wall, drivers emerge through a curtain as their song of choice plays. They follow a "red carpet" down the banking to a catwalk, and from the end of the catwalk, step into the bed of a waiting pickup truck for their ride around the racetrack.

So, about an hour before the race, this is where Isabella found herself: Standing beneath the grandstands, surrounded by reporters and racecar drivers. Her competitors. She knew every one of them, but had barely spoken to any.

But, there were those that she knew.

Spotting Jamie McMurray and Matt Kenseth leaning against the fence beside the walkway, she threaded her way over to them, not wanting to intrude on their conversation, but also slightly apprehensive about being alone.

Jamie saw her coming. "Hey, Isabella! Ya'll ready to race?"

She shrugged. "I guess."

Matt could not hide the smile on his face as he asked, "So…you broke my car chief's nose. What was that all about?"

She sighed. "I don't really want to talk about it."

While he didn't know the entire story, Jamie could tell that it was definitely a sensitive subject. "So, uh, what song did you pick?" he asked, trying to change the subject.

Isabella was confused for a moment. She had completely forgotten about that detail of driver introductions. "I guess whatever was supposed to play for Steve. I didn't tell anyone to change it."

"Bryan Adams, then?" Jamie asked, recalling Steve's usual song of choice.

"Guess so. I'm okay with that. I like Bryan Adams."

They stood around chatting idly for a while about nothing in particular. Isabella was rather blindsided when Jamie asked, "Have you and Phineas thought about kids yet?"

After the initial shock, Isabella replied, "Um…I don't know. We've only been married a year, in June. A year and two months, basically. We haven't talked about it yet. We're always really busy with our jobs. I almost don't know how having a kid would fit into that schedule."

Jamie grinned. "You'll figure it out. Don't worry. You guys are inventive."

"And we should know," Matt joked. "because you regularly hand our butts to us on sheer horsepower."

"Well, you won't have to worry too much about that again," Isabella assured them. "After that crash last week, I decided I'm never building another engine with that much unnecessary power again. It's just too dangerous."

Matt tapped Jamie on the shoulder. "Look at that! The rest of us might actually have a shot at winning now."

Soon enough it was time for driver introductions. Since the starting grid was introduced to the crowd in reverse order, Isabella would be before Jamie and Matt. After Paul Menard pushed past the curtain, she moved into position, awaiting her cue. Outside, the music that had been blasting through the speakers stopped as Menard reached the end of the catwalk and took the microphone.

_"What's up, Bristol? I'm Paul Menard, number 27, Menards Chevrolet. Thanks for coming out, it's gonna be a hell of race."_

Isabella took a deep breath and pushed aside the curtain as her song started. And the lyrics blasting through the speakers immediately caused her to raise an eyebrow.

_When I get high, I get high on speed! Top fuel funny car's a drug for me! My Heart! MY HEART! Kickstart my heart! Always got the cops comin' after me! Custom built bike doin' one-oh-three! My heart! MY HEART! Kickstart my heart!_

On pit road, Candace and Buford were watching driver introductions from atop the war wagon. The former lowered her eyes at the latter. "Really, Buford? Motley Crue?"

Buford smiled smugly, very proud of himself. "Yup. I told you, I was gonna be epic."

_Oooooh- Are you ready, girls?! Ooooooh- Are you ready NOW?! WHOA! YEAH! Kickstart my heart, give it a start! WHOA! YEAH! Baaaaaaaaby!_

Isabella had reached the end of the catwalk, so the music stopped there. The man with the microphone said, _"Starting sixteenth!" _Then he handed her the mic.

Isabella had never been one for stage fright. In fact, there wasn't much on earth, or off earth, that scared her. But when she looked out at the sea of faces anxiously awaiting her intro, she completely forgot what to say.

_"Hi." _The one word echoed back at her through the speakers and threw her off. When the echo had faded, she tried again. _"I'm Isabella. I, uh - Flynn! Isabella Flynn. I'm, uh…making my NASCAR debut today-I mean tonight…in the…P&F Industries…thing. Car. Ford! Yes! It's a Ford! That's it!" _

The staring crowd was deathly silent.

_"Uh…Rock on?" _

Brushing a hair out of her eye, she handed the microphone back to the MC as the next song began to play to introduce Joey Logano. She stepped off the catwalk and joined Paul Menard in the back of the waiting pickup truck for their ride around the track.

"Real smooth, there, Isabella," Menard said to her with a good natured laugh.

"Thanks, Paul," she muttered, half-heartedly waving to the crowd.

Eventually the truck dropped them off in the garage area and she made her way down to their pit stall. Bristol Motor Speedway is so small, pit road is actually broken in half: One half along the length of the front straightaway and the other half on the backstretch. They were pitting near the turn three end of the backstretch.

"Well, that could have gone better," Isabella said to Candace.

Candace laughed and held up her phone. "I am so glad I got that on video. That is _so_ going on the Monotreme Motorsports website."

Isabella rolled her eyes and she and Candace crossed the track to the front stretch pit road, where they would stand by the waiting racecar until opening ceremonies. Isabella had a feeling that some reporter was going to want a quick interview before the race, and she was praying she would have an easier time in front of a TV camera than she would in front of the collective attendance of Bristol Motor Speedway.

* * *

_"Drivers! Start your engines!"_

As the countdown to race time had slowly ticked down, Isabella's nervousness had grown. This wasn't just another test or practice session, this was the real thing! Five hundred miles of white-knuckled on-the-edge short track racing. She didn't show any of that nervousness, of course. She just breathed a little deeper and tried to relax.

With the National Anthem over, she climbed into the car, shaking just a little as she pulled on her gloves. But as soon as the grand marshal said those four words and she coaxed the engine to life, all of that nervousness drained away. There was no need for it. The racecar was like a sanctuary, cutting her off from all the cameras, the fans, everyone who would be watching her tonight, expecting her to perform. In here, it was just her.

After the usual radio check, Isabella followed the cars ahead of her out onto the high concrete banks.

_"Alright, guys," _Candace's voice crackled in her ear. _"Let's take it nice and smooth tonight and just make it to the end in one piece."_

For a moment, Isabella's thumb fumbled for the radio button on the steering wheel. Finally finding it, she replied, "Ten-four."

It was only now, with the field doubled up for the start, that it dawned on Isabella that she was starting in the outside lane. It hadn't even occurred to her before now. Yes, that was were the most speed was, but on the start she would have no room for error, sandwiched between the wall on the outside and Joey Logano to her inside.

A few pace laps later, the flag man, holding the green flag wrapped in one hand, held up a finger to signal one pace lap to go. Isabella saw it, but Irving still said, _"Lights are out on the pace car. Green next time by." _She clicked the radio button once in reply.

What seemed like only seconds later (because it was) she saw the 2020 Mustang pace car peel off the track and head for pit road. She placed one hand on the gear shifter. The gears were so short that she would have to up-shift almost as soon as she hit the gas.

_"Get ready…get ready…get ready…" _Irving said as the front row starters approached the restart box. Because of where she was in relationship to the leaders, still in the corner, Isabella could see the flag man unfurl the green flag. _"Green, green, green." _

Isabella pressed down the gas as smoothly as she could, shifting it into third gear and then returning her hand to the wheel until the corner straightened out. About the time she crossed the start/finish line she quickly hit fourth gear before returning her right hand to the steering wheel to wrestle the car into the corner.

Skirting the wall all the way through the 180 corner, she thankfully had a little breathing room to the inside as Logano dove all the way to the bottom. They came back together off the corner, and Isabella was able to pull ahead, using the momentum from being in the high lane. She was not, however, able to complete the pass.

_"Still there…still there…"_

Through three and four, Logano was able to pull back even as he dove into the corner, but this time Isabella completed the pass off the corner.

_"Clear to the bottom, just barely."_

And no sooner was she clear of Logano, they headed back into turn one and she pulled up a fender alongside Kyle Larson.

_"Inside…"_

It was a tip-toe through the turns, for the car was still a bit snappy-loose on the throttle, and as Larson slid up from the bottom off two, he almost collided with Isabella's left front fender. Her breath caught as she jumped on the brakes, and that caused Logano to rear-end her, just barely. The car broke loose and she fought it down the track nearly to the apron, and that messed up her corner entry into turn three. She had to get in the brakes hard to avoid running up into Logano, and that cost her another spot to Paul Menard.

_"Outside, outside…still there…still there…"_

Isabella made it back to the start/finish line without incident, already feeling out of breath. _Okay, I made it around twice. Now I just gotta do that four-hundred and ninety-eight more times. _That thought alone was enough to make her exhale in frustration. _This is gonna be a long night._

* * *

It's not easy for a driver to talk to his or her crew during a race at Bristol. It's not possible to reach the radio button while turning the steering wheel in the tight corners, and the straightaways are so short they offer little time for communication. The majority of driver-to-crew radio traffic while racing under green is made up of one word descriptions.

_"Loose," _Isabella said on the front stretch twenty laps in. _"On throttle," _she finished when she made it to the backstretch.

And since the driver can't talk much while fighting the racecar around the little bullring of a racetrack, the crew chief must learn how to gather information about the car from those short answers. That meant asking the right questions.

Fortunately, Candace had mastered that skill.

"Is it snappy, like you're lacking rear grip?"

There was a pause. _"Yes."_

"So you're having trouble on exit?"

Pause. _"No."_

"Center?"

_"Yes."_

"So it's worse when you come off the brakes and hit the gas while you still have a lot of wheel in it."

Pause. _"Yes."_

"Okay. Don't worry, we'll take care of it on the first stop. Let me know if it gets worse."

* * *

The rear tires spinning as she gunned the throttle, Isabella launched out of her pit stall onto the crowded pit road, just managing to squeeze in front of Kurt Busch. Keeping a close eye on the tachometer to make sure she wasn't speeding, she made her way around to the front stretch pit road and out back onto the track in turn one, where the field rejoined the pace car.

A caution for a spin by Kasey Kahne had brought the field down pit road, and they took the opportunity to adjust on the car. Candace elected to go a round up on the trackbar instead of messing with the air pressure in the tires. Hopefully, this would give Isabella a little more stability on the throttle. Four fresh tires and fuel and the 28 car was back on the track.

Inside the car, Isabella also took this opportunity to adjust one of the few things she could control herself: the brake bias. She dialed in just a tiny bit more front brake, hoping it would help her corner entry.

"Good job, guys. Nice stop," she told the crew over the radio. "Now let's see where this goes for us."

* * *

_"Get ready…get ready…get ready…green flag."_

Isabella lined up 11th for the restart. She'd gained four positions herself on the track, and the pit crew had gained her another on pit road. Nearly all of the previous run was spent no more than one groove off the wall, for the car was too unstable under throttle to run the bottom. Now that she was starting on the inside line anyway, she planned on giving the bottom a shot.

By the time she'd made it through turns one and two to the backstretch, she could tell the handling was greatly improved. The back end no longer threatened to step out every time she pressed down the gas.

Once the field had strung out a bit, the improvements became more obvious. Now that she didn't have to tip-toe around the other cars, Isabella could get up on the wheel on fight past other cars. She easily passed Kevin Harvick, diving into the corner all the way to the apron, hard on the brakes, while Kevin rode next to the outside wall. Hard acceleration off the corner wasn't quite enough to clear his Chevrolet, as Harvick had the advantage off the corner, but when they dove into turn one, she easily out-braked him, sliding up out of the corner back to the wall to make sure he didn't get a run on her again.

She passed Martin Truex Jr. the same way, and then Greg Biffle and Austin Dillon. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was next, and then she found herself right behind Jamie McMurray. She had been wary of Jamie for the last dozen laps or so because he was running the bottom, too, one of only a few other cars on the track doing so. She was just starting to wonder if she'd be able to pass him on the outside, (for she hadn't gone up there since the restart) when he changed lanes, running the middle of the track. He didn't move up until she reached his back bumper, and she was able to easily pass him in one corner instead of the usual two. Jamie didn't slow down, but he saw Isabella was faster, and instead of fighting, he gave her the lane so neither of them would lose time.

_"Annnnnd…you're clear."_

"Irving."

_"Yes?"_

"Thank Jamie."

_"Will do."_

* * *

Phineas and Ferb checked the life support machines again and wrote down readings from the diagnostic machines on their clip boards. Though Steve's internal injuries were healing fast, he was still in critical condition and needed to be monitored at all times. Vanessa, Dr. Doofenshmirtz, and Baljeet had been on a rotating watch all day, and now the step-brothers were up for the nightshift. They had a TV against the far wall, tuned to the race with the volume on low so they could concentrate.

Even though he wasn't really paying much attention to the race, Phineas recognized the familiar red-and-green color scheme of the number 28 Ford out of the corner of his eye. "Ferb, they're talking about Isabella. Turn it up."

Ferb removed the remote from his pocket and turned up the volume.

_"-been moving up steadily through the field from her 16__th__ place starting position. She just cracked the top five, passing Jamie McMurray, and right now is quicker than leader Brad Keselowski."_

Candace's voice on the radio followed the commentary. _"I'm almost afraid to tell you this, but you are currently the quickest car on the track. Not by much, but you are consistently atop the board."_

_"I have to say, I am extremely impressed, especially being that this is the first time she has ever been behind the wheel of a racecar, in any series. She looks like she's been doing this her whole life."_

_"Kinda reminds me of the guy she took over for, Steve Marcis. Difference is, he started out in the ARCA Series first."_

_"Well, we're gonna see just how good she is because the next two cars she's gonna have to pass for position are Kyle Busch, and then Jimmie Johnson."_

"Wow," Phineas said. "She's doing really well!"

"Did you expect any different?" Ferb asked.

"I'm not really sure what I expected. But I guess you're right. Isabella is good at anything she sets her mind to."

Neither noticed that Steve's left arm was gently shifting.

* * *

After hearing Candace on the radio, Isabella actually started driving harder. She was on a mission, and that mission was to get to the lead.

Blasting off the corner around the slow lapped car of Brain Vickers, she set her sights on Kyle Busch's number 18 M&M's Toyota, just a car length ahead of her.

But Kyle was not about to just move over. He was also running the bottom, and the only way Isabella was going by was on the outside.

So, as they went into turn 3, Isabella tried the middle lane, intending to be just high enough to squeeze around Kyle's car. But, for some reason, the car was not as stable there, and she lost a little ground struggling to keep the car from spinning. She tried a few more times, and then tried right up next to the wall again, but the car just didn't handle well up off the bottom of the track.

Isabella returned to running the bottom. Drawing up behind Kyle, she ran as close as she safely could to his back bumper, hoping to scare him into moving over.

But Kyle Busch is not easily intimidated. He stood his ground. Lap after lap, Isabella tried to get a run off the corner to get under Kyle on the straightaway, but couldn't. Kyle was just a little tiny bit better on corner exit. Getting frustrated, Isabella began to focus on the Toyota emblem on the TV panel of Busch's car…

Diving into turn one, Isabella drove it just a little far and gave Kyle a solid bump. "Hey! It's me! AMERICA!"

The 18 car broke just slightly loose and Kyle managed to stay on the bottom. Isabella couldn't get a run.

"Yeah! I'm here!"

Isabella floored the gas as they came off the corner. The rear end snapped around and she wrestled the car onto the back straightaway, now a lane lower than Kyle, as she'd intended. The tires suddenly bit into the concrete and the Ford shot forward. A nose under Kyle's left rear corner panel meant he wouldn't be able to drop to the bottom in turn 3, and Isabella out braked him, clearing him onto the front stretch.

* * *

_"Wow! A heck of a move by Isabella Flynn, and she overtakes Kyle Busch for the fourth spot."_

_"She's learning quick, huh? That's a move I'd expect out of Steve Marcis, too."_

Phineas and Ferb were glued to the TV. "Yikes," Phineas said. "That was scary. But an incredible move."

Beneath the sheet, Steve's fingers slowly curled into a fist.

* * *

_"Where is that Jimmie?"_

Candace was a bit surprised by Isabella's outburst, mostly because it was the longest sentence she'd said under green so far, and partly because she was not expecting it.

"Uh…you got three lap cars between him and you."

_"Gotcha."_

* * *

Isabella didn't really need to ask that question. She could see Jimmie Johnson's Lowe's Chevrolet every time she went through a turn. She worked her way around the lap cars as quickly as she could, for Johnson was passing them almost as fast as she was. Finally, she caught up to him, the separation down to just a few feet.

"I've got you, Señor Mutt," she said to herself.

Diving down into the corner again, Isabella was able to pull even with Johnson, but the 48 Chevy shot back ahead when they reached the straightaway again. She tried again, and again, and again, but just couldn't manage to gain any type of advantage to pull ahead.

"That's it," she muttered with frustration.

She held the throttle to the floor much longer than she should have, then slammed on the brakes late into the corner, hoping to clear Johnson all at once and then let the extra momentum carry her up the track in front of him.

It was a move that would have worked…if the right front tire hadn't suddenly blown. Lap after lap of diving hard into the corner and turning as hard as possible had worn the rubber thin, and it just couldn't hold any longer.

Without the right front tire sticking to the banking, holding the car down to the bottom groove, the car jumped to the right. The front bumper just barely caught the rear end of Jimmie Johnson's car, causing the 48 to spin, before Isabella slammed into the outside wall. The momentum carried the car almost all the way through the turn to the backstretch, where it stopped against the wall, the right side pancaked in about eight inches, the right front wheel assembly a mangled mess.

Meanwhile, Johnson gunned the throttle and spun the steering wheel madly. He managed to keep the car out of the fence and pointed back in the right direction. Downshifting, he accelerated away.

* * *

Jason Shapiro had his own duties to take care of for his own driver, but he just couldn't help but watch Isabella, his daughter, circle the track. It was more interesting, anyway. Matt Kenseth was running second, but wasn't gaining anything on leader Brad Keselowski. Isabella, however, was putting on quite a show as she worked her way up through the field.

When the 28 Ford suddenly shot to the right and slammed the wall, he did what all fathers would do. He jumped out of his seat atop the pit box and nervously watched the wrecked car for any sign that Isabella was okay.

The seconds ticked away, seeming like hours, and still Isabella did not climb from the car. It was nerve racking.

* * *

"Oh no!" Phineas cried out, jumping up as he watched the Ford carrying his wife slam into the wall at one hundred and twenty miles per hour.

_"Oh! And Isabella Flynn…into the wall. Caution is out."_

_"Man, what a shame. She was doing so well."_

"Oh, not again. Please not again," Phineas whispered. "Not another brutal injury."

The camera pushed in on the motionless racecar. Through the windshield, the driver was not moving.

* * *

_"Isabella."_

Isabella heard the radio crackle in her ear, but for some reason it did not register.

_"Isabella!" _Candace yelled. _"Are you okay?"_

Finally, Isabella keyed the radio. "Yeah," she said through a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm alright."

The force of the car slamming into the wall had knocked the wind out of her and slightly disoriented her for a moment, but otherwise she was unhurt. Now that her senses had returned, she remembered the protocol and reached up to put down the window net, just as the safety trucks arrived on the scene.

She unclipped her radio and HANS device and climbed from the car before the safety workers could reach her.

* * *

Phineas sighed with relief as they watched Isabella climb from the mangled racecar. "Whew! She's out. I hope she's okay."

On TV, they could see Isabella remove her helmet and the fire retardant hood that all drivers with long hair or facial hair were required to wear, and then flip her dark, sweat-soaked mane a few times to air it out.

Comfortable again, she turned and kicked the racecar square in the door.

"She's fine," Ferb said.

"Why is Isabella driving my car?" came a weak voice from behind them.

The brothers whipped around to find the source of the voice, their jaws hanging open in surprise.

* * *

Jason started breathing again when he saw Isabella climb from the racecar. He sat back down and leaned over to talk to Ratcliff. Daughter or not, there was still a race to run, and Jason had a driver complaining that his car was pushing in the corner.

That's racin.' Life goes on.

* * *

Candace quickly made her way to the Infield Care Center, arriving just as the ambulance carrying Isabella arrived. She made her way into one of the observation rooms and Isabella walked in a minute later.

"Hey, Isabella. How you feeling?"

"Sore," she said simply. Candace could see the look on Isabella's face. She was not happy.

"Yeah, that'll happen."

A doctor quickly checked Isabella over to make sure she was okay, and then the two ladies headed back outside. Isabella seemed intent on getting back to pit road, but was stopped by an NBC camera crew and reporter, wanting an interview.

"I'd really rather not," Isabella yelled over the roar of the cars. Even moving slowly under caution, the racecars were loud, and the sound was bottled up in the tiny racetrack, making it seem even louder.

"Just one quick question?" the reporter yelled back.

"I-"

Candace put her hand on Isabella's shoulder. "Isabella. Do it."

Isabella sighed in defeat. "Fine."

* * *

_"Isabella Flynn, just released from the Infield Care Center. Isabella, you had such a good run going, what happened?"_

_"I couldn't hear your question, but I'm assuming you just asked what happened. I guess I was just abusing the right front tire a too much and it just reached the breaking point. The car was great, I hate it for my crew, but…what are you gonna do?"_

_"That's Isabella Flynn, was running fourth, now done for the night."_

* * *

The girls made it back to the pit stall where the half of the gang was busy packing up the equipment. The other half was struggling with the racecar, trying to get it back in the hauler.

"Let's get packed up and get out of here," Isabella growled.

"We kinda can't," Candace told her. "Remember? The haulers have to drive across the racetrack to get out of the infield. We can't leave until the race is over."

Isabella just shook her head in disgust. "I can't believe I did that. I am so mad at myself right now. I want to break something. What can I break?"

Jeremy jogged over to them. "You okay, Isabella?"

"Yes. I'm fine. I just can't believe I was that stupid. First I killed Steve, now I almost killed myself."

"Isabella, you didn't kill Steve. I just got a text from Ferb. Steve is awake."

**I have to say, it was nice to have a little break from Steve in this story, to see the gang operate without him. I hope you enjoyed the break, too, because for the rest of the story, Steve is going to be very important. **

**My favorite line from ****_Talladega Nights_**** made it into this chapter. I really wish I could get a recording of Alyson Stoner saying, "Hey! It's me! America!" just because.**


End file.
